The appointment may last only a few weeks, but President Trump on Wednesday named long-time Republican gay activist Richard Grenell to be his new Acting Director of National Intelligence.

The appointment makes Grenell, who has been serving as ambassador to Germany, the first openly gay person to serve in a cabinet-level, albeit on an “acting” basis.

[NOTE: The original version of this story indicated Grenell’s appointment was to the cabinet. The Director of National Intelligence is not in the cabinet but is designated a “cabinet-level” position.]

Without Senate confirmation, Grenell can serve in the position for only 210 days, but some the Washington PostTiw said a “senior White House official” indicated the president would appoint a “permanent nominee” as soon as March 11.

Trump announced the appointment in a Twitter post Wednesday evening (February 19), between posts admiring the long line of people waiting to see him at a campaign rally in Arizona.

The appointment was quickly criticized by a wide range of people who said Grenell has no qualifications or experience to justify the appointment to such a high position. Others suggested the existing Acting Director of National Intelligence was being ousted over Trump’s upset with a classified briefing the DNI office gave to the House Intelligence Committee. That briefing reportedly told lawmakers that Russia is trying to interfere in the 2020 elections, in favor of a Trump re-election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement February 20, saying Grenell’s “sole qualification is his absolute loyalty to the president.” She criticized Trump for making the appointment an “acting” directorship to avoid having Grenell go through Senate confirmation.

The position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created in 2004 by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act to oversee 17 agencies of the U.S. intelligence network, including the Central Intelligence Agency; the National Security Agency; the intelligence agencies of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard; as well as the intelligence operations of Defense Department, Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among others.

The DNI oversees all these operations and acts as “principal advisor to the president, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to national security,” according to the office’s official website.

The most recent Acting DNI was Joseph Maguire, who had previously served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Maguire assumed the role in August of last year.

The Washington Post reported February 20 that President Trump had considered Maguire for a permanent appointment but had become upset with Maguire over a briefing one of his staffers presented earlier this month to the House Intelligence Committee. The Post said the briefing concerned foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Grenell comes to the position after a brief tenure as ambassador to Germany, a position to which he was confirmed in April 2018 by a 56 to 42 vote in the Senate. Grenell was President Trump’s first appointment of an openly gay person to his administration.

Grenell has earned a reputation as a staunch Trump loyalist and one willing to use social media to score hits against Trump’s critics. He’s also known to take personal and derogatory swipes at women he takes exception to. He once posted a Twitter message criticizing then First Lady Michelle Obama for “sweating on the East Room’s carpet” and suggested openly lesbian MSNBC political talk show host Rachel Maddow to “put on a necklace.”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Grenell wrote an essay for Fox News, saying that “Russian or Russian-approved tactics like cyber warfare and campaigns of misinformation have been happening for decades.” Russia’s motive, he said, was not so much to promote one candidate but “to ensure that whoever is elected leader of the free world understands that Russia is on the offense and unintimidated by America’s traditional role.”

Former CIA Director John Brennan told CNN that Grenell “doesn’t have any experience or credential” to serve in the position, “and he certainly hasn’t had any intelligence experience.”

Grenell, 51, graduated from Harvard University and, for a while, was an outspoken member of the national gay Republican group Log Cabin Republicans. He served under the administration of President George W. Bush as spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and in 2012, served as a foreign policy advisor to then Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He resigned from the position after only two weeks, citing “hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues….” He then began working as frequent political commentator for Fox News.

President Trump nominated Grenell to be ambassador to Germany in 2017, but that confirmation was held up by Democratic opponents in the Senate. Once confirmed and on the job in Germany, he made a reputation for himself as a reliable defender of Trump policies who was both tough and abrasive.

In announcing Grenell’s departure, Deutsche Welle, a German media outlet, said Grenell had become an “unsavory figure in Berlin,” so much so that one German politician called for his expulsion and another characterized Grenell as “a complete diplomatic failure.”

In 2013, Grenell underwent chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma but announced in August 2017 that he was “cancer free.”