INTEL NOM VOWS TO RESIST TRUMP PRESSURE
President Donald Trump’s nominee for national intelligence director sought at his confirmation hearing Tuesday to shed his reputation as a loyalist to the president, insisting to skeptical Democrats that he would carry out the job free of political influence or partisan bias.
The comments from Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican, were aimed at quelling Democratic fears that he would be vulnerable to pressure from a president who is often perceived as politicizing intelligence and who publicly disputes intelligence conclusions at odds with his personal views. Those concerns are amplified at a time when intelligence agencies are investigating politically sensitive issues, including election meddling and the cause of the coronavirus pandemic.
Senators repeatedly pressed Ratcliffe on whether he could stand up to Trump by presenting him with analysis he did not like. They also asked if he agreed with the president’s assertions that intelligence agencies had “run amok” and were infiltrated by the “deep state.” Ratcliffe refused to endorse either claim and insisted he would not shape intelligence findings to meet the desires of anyone.
“Let me be very clear: Regardless of what anyone wants our intelligence to reflect, the intelligence I will provide, if confirmed, will not be impacted or altered as a result of outside influence,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the committee chairman, said after the hearing that he was satisfied Ratcliffe would serve “in an independent capacity.” He promised a quick vote on his nomination.
But Sen. Chuck Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor as the hearing was under way, spoke for many Democrats by dismissing Ratcliffe as a “deeply partisan cheerleader for the president, a yes man in every sense of the phrase.”
The confirmation hearing, the first in-person one held under drastic new distancing rules for the coronavirus, comes at a tumultuous time for the intelligence agencies. About a half-dozen intelligence community leaders have resigned or been ousted over the last year and agencies already grappling with the prospect of Russian interference in November’s election are now probing the politically charged question of whether the coronavirus is man-made or originated in a Chinese laboratory.
Ratcliffe’s path to the job has been similarly topsyturvy, with the original nomination withdrawn after bipartisan criticism he was unqualified to oversee 17 U.S. spy agencies. Trump unexpectedly renominated him in February.