Last weekend, the president tweeted out his choice for Director of National Intelligence:
I am pleased to announce that highly respected Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas will be nominated by me to be the Director of National Intelligence. A former U.S. Attorney, John will lead and inspire greatness for the Country he loves. Dan Coats, the current Director, will….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2019
But today, Trump thought better of the choice:
Our great Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe is being treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media. Rather than going through months of slander and libel, I explained to John how miserable it would be for him and his family to deal with these people….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
….John has therefore decided to stay in Congress where he has done such an outstanding job representing the people of Texas, and our Country. I will be announcing my nomination for DNI shortly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
The knives were out for Ratcliffe from the beginning. He was a fairly easy target, having served only six months on the Intelligence Committee.
But lack of experience wasn’t Ratcliffe’s only problem.
Although Ratcliffe had touted his counter-terrorism experience while in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas, media outlets including Reuters have reported on concerns that he may have exaggerated his achievements as a prosecutor.
Omigod, no! A politician who “exaggerated his achievements”? Quick, get the smelling salts! I feel faint from the shock.
Democratic lawmakers and some former senior U.S. intelligence officers have said Ratcliffe, 53, lacked the expertise and experience to replace Daniel Coats as director of national security and some have voiced concerns that he would warp U.S. intelligence to support the president’s views.
A Trump loyalist who has served for six months on the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, Ratcliffe gained attention last week by criticizing former Special Counsel Robert Mueller during a hearing on Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
When Barack Obama named a Democratic Party partisan like Leon Panetta as Director of the CIA, nobody batted an eye. Do you think it might depend on which party is in control of the White House?
There is no such creature as a “non-partisan” intelligence chief. They serve at the pleasure of the president, and you wouldn’t have expected Obama to name a Republican to the post, any more than Trump should name a Democrat.
Nor is there anything that could be called “non-partisan intelligence.” The person who fills that spot will bring their unique worldview to the job and be always cognizant of who is sitting in the big chair in the Oval Office. That there is intelligence analysis that doesn’t sift through layers of bureaucrats used to trimming their views to make them acceptable to the president may have been true at one time, but no more. The government from top to bottom is more politicized than it’s ever been.
Trump wanted someone in the DNI post he could trust. That’s what all presidents want for all jobs in the executive branch. It’s too bad his first choice is being run off because he tried to pad his resume.
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