Trump administration’s plan to spin off mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie faces new uncertainty | CNN Business

President Donald Trump tried – and failed – to end government control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during his first term. Now, his decision to give Bill Pulte, the official charged with making that happen, a second, unrelated job as acting director of national intelligence is fueling new doubts about whether the effort will succeed this time. Pulte, whose grandfather founded one of the country’s largest homebuilders, would retain his position as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, even as the DNI post would put him in charge of national intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NSA. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump said he hadn’t ruled out an IPO for Fannie and Freddie. “It’s not a rush,” he added. When CNN sought an updated timeline this week from the White House, the FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, none responded. “I did see steps moving forward (to spin off Fannie and Freddie), but it appears to me that those efforts have stalled,” Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN after Pulte’s new