President Donald Trump nominated John Ratcliffe to replace Dan Coats as the director of national intelligence. Ratcliffe comes with limited experience to oversee the massive US intelligence community. And this has sparked concerns over the possible politicization of crucial national security decisions.
Coats is leaving after 24 months during which Trump has regularly ignored and undermined his spy chiefs, keeping them in the dark especially on his plans for relations with Russia.
"I'm gravely concerned when it appears that the president is trying to look for someone who will be a political loyalist rather than that independent voice standing up for the intelligence community," Democratic Senator John Warner said airing worries about the appointment.
Ratcliffe is a former prosecutor who has limited experience in intelligence oversight. Sen. Ron Wyden said, “The sum total of his qualifications appears to be his record of promoting Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the investigation into Russian interference and calling for prosecution of Trump’s political enemies,”
Key Republicans were cautious about the nomination, some thinking that, despite his inexperience in the field, he might have Trump's ear, unlike Coats.
Ratcliffe, by comparison, has made his name over four years in the House of Representatives as a staunch defender of the president.
"So was the Trump investigation really about our national security — or was it politically motivated?" he said last year, he said in an interview, defending President Trump being investigated over collusion with Russia.
That view —entirely contrary to how US spy chiefs see the Russia investigation — could bode ill for an intelligence community whose relationship with Trump has always been tenuous.
Ratcliffe, 53, would take over a crucial job that involves collating and distilling intelligence from the CIA, the National Security Agency, the FBI, the Pentagon and other bodies for the president.
Ratcliffe, before arriving in Congress in 2015, he was mayor of a small, very wealthy lakeside suburb of Dallas, Texas for eight years, and a federal district attorney for just one year.
"Confirming this individual would amount to an endorsement of this administration's drive to politicize our intelligence agencies. This is a dangerous time, and America needs the most qualified and objective individuals possible to lead our intelligence agencies, said Senator Ron Wyden.
