ArgumentLeading the Intelligence Community Will Be a Test for Ratcliffe

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) was confirmed last Thursday as President Donald Trump’s top intelligence adviser in a party line Senate vote, putting an inexperienced and highly partisan legislator at the top of the nation’s intelligence enterprise during a time of unprecedented threats to our security. Matt Olsen and Katrina Mulligan write at Just Security that Ratcliffe made a name for himself defending the president, noisily and often falsely. The add:

He is the least qualified director of national intelligence (DNI) in the position’s short history. Ratcliffe’s thin experience – he had been on the House Intelligence Committee for just a few months when Trump first nominated him for the job last year– became an obstacle to his being confirmed, even by a Republican Senate. By law the position must be filled by a person with “extensive national experience.” When it became clear that Ratcliffe had few qualifications for the job and had badly misrepresented his experience, the president withdrew his name in August before the nomination had even been made official.

This time around, however, the president was able to force the Senate to choose between keeping the current acting DNI Richard Grenell, another inexperienced loyalist, or confirming Ratcliffe. The Senate chose Ratcliffe, perhaps preferring a permanent DNI and hoping they would have marginally more control over a Senate-confirmed pick.

At his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Ratcliffe vowed to “speak truth to power” and ensure the independence of intelligence agencies. But, will Ratcliffe keep those promises? Olsen and Mulligan are not sure:

Ratcliffe’s record… provides reason to doubt he will fulfill this obligation. Ratcliffe earned his nomination by repeating and amplifying thepresident’s false narratives about the Russia investigation. Ratcliffe has struggled even to confirm that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the unanimous opinion of the Intelligence Community he is now poised to lead. Ratcliffe also advanced a conspiracy theory that a “secret society” within the Department of Justice and FBI worked to prevent Trump’s election, and he made false statements about the evidence presented during Trump’s impeachment hearing.

They conclude that “In no small measure, our nation’s security depends on Ratcliffe’s ability to rise to the demands of his new office and to keep his promises—to the Congress, and to the American people.”