“The Senate Intelligence Committee has approved Rep. John Ratcliffe’s (R-TX) nomination to be director of national intelligence, paving the way for a full Senate vote in the coming weeks,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Republican congressman from Texas and staunch defender of President Trump has faced difficult questions about his credentials and whether he is capable of acting independently.
James Hohmann: “The Ukraine donnybrook shows the degree to which institutions depend on the individuals inside of them to function as they were designed. The whistleblower who sounded an alarm while others bit their tongues showed that. So did the inspector general who alerted Congress to his complaint when President Trump’s loyalists were trying to keep it secret. And the public got a glimpse during a House committee hearing on Thursday of how differently this scandal might have played out if Trump’s previous pick to lead the nation’s intelligence community had been confirmed.”
“The temperamental contrast was stark between Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), the hyper-partisan congressman who wanted the job, and Joe Maguire, the decorated military hero who got it instead and seemed eager to show he’s no one’s toady. Democrats faulted Maguire, as the acting director of national intelligence, for checking in with the very entities who a CIA whistleblower had accused of wrongdoing, including Bill Barr’s Justice Department and Trump’s White House counsel’s office, to see if they wanted to claim executive privilege to prevent the disclosure of his allegations.”
“President Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s next spy chief is regarded as a relatively disengaged member of the House Intelligence Committee and is little known across the ranks of spy agencies he has been tapped to lead,” the Washington Post reports.
“Though Rep. John Ratcliffe’s membership on the House committee is perhaps his most important credential for the top intelligence job, officials said he has yet to take part in one of its overseas trips to learn more about spy agencies’ work.”
“It is also unclear whether Ratcliffe has spent much time at the headquarters of the CIA, the National Security Agency or other parts of the sprawling U.S. intelligence community that he has been nominated to direct.”
If Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) is responsible for poverty and crime in his congressional district, as President Trump has claimed for the last few days, then the Washington Post notes there is some bad news for the president about his pick to be Director of National Intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX): On a number of metrics, Ratcliffe’s district is doing even worse.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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