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Trump Nominates Far Right Winger John Ratcliffe as Director of National Intelligence
A sycophant becoming the Director of National Intelligence is one of the more worrisome moves in this administration. Modern autocrats often use the intelligence institutions to attack/undermine their opponents.
Trump is consolidating his personal control over the intelligence community. Between loyalists Barr and Radcliffe, and pliant CIA and FBI directors, Trump is close to neutralizing intelligence and law enforcement as spoilers in his bid to amass unprecedented executive power.
Trump announced on Twitter Sunday that he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence.... Coats will leave office on August 15.
Radcliffe harshly questioned Mueller during the recent hearing, falsely suggesting that he failed to comply with the Special Counsel regulations and cutting Mueller off when he tried to explain himself.
Trump was thrilled by Ratcliffe's admonishment of former special counsel Robert Mueller in last week's House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Ratcliffe has NO national-security background while all previous Directors of National Intelligence has been the foremost experts. Before becoming DNI, Jim Clapper had worked in U.S. intelligence for nearly fifty years and personally headed two of the nation's 17 intel agencies. By comparison, Ratcliffe was the mayor of Heath, Texas, population: 8000.
Heritage ranks Ratcliffe as second most conservative in the House. He is a major critic of Mueller and Russia being investigated. He as no intel background, is a former small town mayor and federal prosecutor.
The director of national intelligence serves as an overseer of the U.S. intelligence community and a close adviser to the president and National Security Council, producing each day's top-secret Presidential Daily Brief. Trump has privately said he thinks the Office of the Director of National Intelligence represents an unnecessary bureaucratic layer and that he would like to get rid of it. He has been told that eliminating the ODNI is not politically possible, but he would still like to "downsize" the office....
We're really going to show Russia, North Korea, Iran, and others have serious we are about our national security by nominating a former very-small-town Texas mayor who's been in Congress for a couple years to be the CHIEF INTELLIGENCE OFFICER for the country.
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