Tag Archives: DNI

national news, national security

DNI pick one of the ‘best people’? C’mon, man!

I cannot help but circle back to one of the many idiotic promises Donald Trump made while he campaigned for the presidency.

He kept telling us he would surround himself with the “best people” to help him protect us against our enemies and enact all manner of public policy.

The nominee to be our next director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, is so far from the “best people” category, it is laughable on its face. Still, he is likely to be confirmed by the Republican-led U.S. Senate.

Ratcliffe got the call to be the DNI in 2019. Then we learned he had fudged on his background. The East Texas congressman had little of the requisite national security experience on his record. He had instead a reputation of being a loyal Donald Trump sycophant, which he demonstrated amply during the impeachment hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives. That qualifies him for the job as the nation’s top spook. Ridiculous! Then he backed out of that earlier battle.

The previous DNI, Dan Coats, left office after disagreeing with Trump over, um, national security issues. Coats was one of the few grownups Trump picked at the beginning of his presidential term. He said the Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016, while Trump defended the Russians. Coats didn’t do what Trump demanded, so he was out.

Now comes Ratcliffe — again! Oh, brother!

Added to all of this are questions about whether Trump ignored the obvious national security threat posed by the coronavirus that has killed more than 70,000 Americans. He got the briefing that the virus posed an imminent threat in January. He looked the other way.

Would a DNI Ratcliffe have insisted Trump listen to the advice of the medical experts? Would a DNI Ratcliffe pitch a fit if Trump didn’t act more proactively earlier? Based on what I watched as Ratcliffe — along with other Republican lackeys on the House intelligence and judiciary committees — did to defend Trump against obvious high crimes, well, I doubt it … seriously!

Donald Trump’s version of the “best people” is going to get the sternest test imaginable if John Ratcliffe gets confirmed to become the next director of national intelligence.

We all should say a prayer for the nation.

national news

GOP seeks fast-track confirmation of a fraud for DNI

John Ratcliffe was revealed to be a fraud when Donald Trump nominated him the first time to become the Director of National Intelligence.

The Northeast Texas congressman then pulled his name out of the running. Then the president, who still needed someone to fill the DNI post permanently, resubmitted Ratcliffe’s name.

He’s still as fraudulent a pick now as he was then, but now Senate Republicans want him confirmed as quickly as possible.

What a joke!

Ratcliffe’s only “qualification” to serve as the nation’s top spook is that he is an avid, fervent, fanatical Donald Trump loyalist, which is the president’s seeming top criterion for anyone seeking to become a member of the Cabinet. Actual qualifications be damned!

Trump has told us many times about how qualified individuals are lining up to work in the White House. Well, that’s a lie, too. How do I know that? Look at who he has nominated — for the second time! — to be DNI.

John Ratcliffe inflated his resume when he sought the job the first time. He has virtually none of the international intelligence experience he said he had. GOP senators got cold feet when Ratcliffe got the call to succeed former DNI Dan Coats.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I don’t know what’s changed now. I cannot fathom what commends Ratcliffe now for this most important task.

Amazing.

national news

When did Ratcliffe get the cred to become next DNI?

Donald John Trump wanted to nominate John Ratcliffe to be director of national intelligence this past summer.

Then questions surfaced about the U.S. representative from East Texas’ credentials. It was alleged that he fudged on ’em. He wasn’t nearly as qualified to lead the spook network as he claimed to be.

Senate Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in questioning the wisdom of this selection. Ratcliffe withdrew his name.

But wait! Here he is again! Trump has renominated him to be DNI.

What happened? Has he built any additional credibility or credential to be the nation’s leading spy?

No. He hasn’t! All he’s done is defend Donald Trump ferociously during the House impeachment inquiry that resulted in Trump being impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Ratcliffe represents a congressional district that is thought to be as reliably Republican as any in the nation. He is on the ballot this fall. The GOP primary occurs on Super Tuesday next week. He once was a U.S attorney, but his prosecutorial experience is extremely limited, having little to do with matters involving national intelligence.

I am left to wonder what in the world the president is doing with this nutty appointment. He selected a U.S. ambassador to Germany as temporary DNI with zero credibility; he fired Joseph Maguire because the former acting DNI contradicted Trump’s national security assessment.

Now we get another Trump toadie to provide unvarnished intelligence? What the heck is that all about? Trump wouldn’t listen to the unfettered truth if it slapped him in the puss!

I do not feel any safer. Do you?

International news

Trump denies Russians are helping him … imagine that!

(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Of course Donald John Trump would deny the Russians are helping him win re-election.

Of course, too, that he would blame the story on Democrats seeking to undermine his effort to win a second presidential term.

Except for this known fact: The president asked another foreign government, Ukraine, to help him win re-election by digging up dirt on a potential political rival. There’s also the denial that Russians delivered in Trump’s presence, which Trump endorsed despite the analysis of the U.S. intelligence network.

Donald Trump’s corrupt tendencies are on full display as this story continues to grow more legs and wings.

Trump fired former acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire because the former DNI had the temerity to brief congressional leaders of both parties about what his office had learned, that Russians are working to attack our electoral system this year, just as they did in 2016. The source of Trump’s anger? That Maguire would tell Democrats while doing his job as the nation’s top intelligence officer.

He now has installed Richard Grenell, a longstanding Trump loyalist, as the latest acting DNI. Grenell has no intelligence experience; he has no background on which to draw even as he fills this post on a temporary basis. He’s a Trump toadie who won’t give an honest and unvarnished assessment of national security threats to the commander in chief.

You want more corruption evidence? How about reports that Trump has instructed the White House personnel office to purge the administration of anyone who has even whispered a negative statement about the president? He wants nothing but yes men and women.

Donald Trump scares the daylights out of me.

national news

Trump reaction to intelligence on Russian attack appears highly instructive

If you’re the president of the United States and your intelligence gurus give you information about a hostile foreign power’s effort to undermine our electoral system, you would want to blow the whistle on the foreign power. Isn’t that right?

Not if you’re Donald John Trump, the current president.

He wants to keep it secret. He didn’t want Congress to know about a report from the intelligence community that Russia had launched another attack on our election. Trump was so adamant about keeping it secret that he fired the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, because he had the nerve to spill the beans to congressional overseers that Russians are working to help Trump win re-election.

Nope, can’t do that, Joe. Trump then brought in a fierce loyalist, Richard Grennell, to become the new acting DNI. Grennell is going to do Trump’s bidding.

This is all being reported with extreme credibility by The New York Times.

Donald Trump is demonstrating to us all yet again how fundamentally dangerous he is as the president. He wants to obstruct Congress from knowing this information not because of any concern over the integrity of the electoral system. Oh no. His reason is because he fears that congressional Democrats are going to use this information against him as he campaigns for re-election.

How many ways does this guy have to demonstrate that he is interested only in his own political backside? How many times does he have to show that he cares next to nothing about protecting our political institutions against foreign interference?

How many times does he have to violate his oath of office in order for Republicans in Congress to become as enraged at this guy’s conduct as the rest of us?

I have to say it again, with gusto: Donald Trump is not fit to serve as president of the United States. The nation needs for him to lose the next election. The nation needs as well to be protected from this guy’s abuse of power.

Donald John Trump is an existential threat to all the values we cherish as a nation.

national news

Trump turns to another of the ‘best people’

Is this the best that the president of the United States can do?

He has hired U.S. ambassador to Germany, a fellow named Richard Grenell, to take charge of the nation’s intelligence network. Have I mentioned that Grenell has zero experience at intelligence-gathering at any level and that he will be named “acting” director of national intelligence? Well, I just did.

This is a monumentally stupid appointment.

Grenell wouldn’t face Senate confirmation were he to remain on “acting” status. He reportedly has said that Donald Trump will select a permanent DNI soon. I am not holding my breath in anticipation of that appointment coming.

The preposterous nature of this appointment is made clear by Trump’s insistence that they’re pounding down the door of the White House, that he seemingly has to fight off the hordes of qualified applicants seeking to work in his administration. That he would make such an idiotic assertion is laughable in the extreme.

Grenell has no business running the nation’s vast intelligence network. That is a job that requires skill and knowledge. It requires a keen understanding of the crises that confront our agencies at every turn. It demands that the DNI be able to give unvarnished assessments of national security threats to the Big Man in the Oval Office … and it demands that the president be willing to accept what the DNI tells him!

Does any of that sound like the manner in which the current president operates? Of course not!

International news

National intelligence network takes another hit

The director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, is heading for the door Thursday. He served the nation with diligence and distinction. He spoke the truth about the threats to the nation.

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, didn’t listen to him. Coats will be gone very soon.

So, too, will his No. 2, the deputy director of national intelligence, Sue Gordon, a career CIA official. She’s a pro. Gordon also served for many years in the national intelligence network with supreme diligence.

Gordon is leaving office along with Coats.

What is wrong with this picture? Plenty. I now will explain briefly.

The DNI office now is without its top two intelligence officials. Coats is a politician, having served in the U.S. House and Senate before taking on the DNI job in the Trump administration. However, he stood behind the intelligence professionals who determined without equivocation that Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016 and are doing so yet again in advance of the 2020 presidential election.

Coats butted heads with Donald Trump. He “spoke truth to power.” The man with the power, Trump, isn’t hearing it.

As for Gordon, custom dictated that she would have stepped into the DNI spot as the acting director. She, though, took the advice of intelligence pros and submitted her resignation.

Trump now has Joseph Maguire as acting DNI. He comes from a counterintelligence agency. He could be a solid choice, but he lacks the overarching background that Sue Gordon would have brought to the office … had she chosen to stay on in the Trump administration.

Ladies and gents, we have a leadership vacuum at the top of our nation’s intelligence apparatus. As for the president, he continues to demonstrate utter cluelessness on how he intends to protect us from hostile powers that are threatening the integrity of our very system of government.

national news, national security

How on Earth does this POTUS do the right thing?

U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe’s decision to pull out of the director of national intelligence job puts Donald John Trump squarely in the middle of a quandary he seems to have no interest in solving.

Trump selected the toadie Ratcliffe — a Northeast Texas congressman — to succeed Dan Coats as DNI, only to face a storm of criticism over Ratcliffe’s partisan leanings and allegations that he embellished his resume. Trump blamed the media for doing their job in “vetting” this individual.

Ratcliffe is out. Coats will be gone Aug. 15. Who will fill the vital job as head of the nation’s intelligence network? How in the world does this president do the right thing and find someone who (a) is willing to work for Donald Trump and (b) would provide Trump with the critical analysis of the existential security threats to the nation.

More to the point, how does Trump resist the impulse to rely on those who tell him what he wants to hear and ignores what he needs to hear?

Coats and other intelligence chiefs said the same thing: Russia attacked our election in 2016. Trump has dismissed them. Indeed, just this week he said former special counsel Robert Mueller — who said yet again that the Russians posed a serious threat to our electoral system — didn’t know what he was talking about.

The heads of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff all have said the same thing: The Russians attacked us.

Coats spoke “truth to power.” Ratcliffe spoke quite the opposite.

What in the world is Donald Trump going to do to fill this job? He needs critical thinking. He needs to hear the truth. He needs to be told where the threats exist and he needs to consider strategies to protect our system against further assaults from Russia and perhaps other hostile powers.

Who in the world is willing to provide what the president of the United States won’t accept?

national security

OK, Mr. President, look for a legitimate DNI nominee

Donald J. Trump has yanked John Ratcliffe’s name from consideration as the next Director of National Intelligence.

Ratcliffe, the congressman from Northeast Texas who also happens to be a staunch — damn near rabid — Trump supporter, had no business being considered for the top job in our nation’s vast intelligence-gathering and analysis network.

Why? Because he demonstrated a palpable disregard for the work done by Robert Mueller, the former special counsel who has said categorically that Russians attacked our electoral system in  2016 and were poised to do it again in 2020.

Ratcliffe, moreover, reportedly embellished his resume, suggesting he had taken part in anti-terror operations while serving as U.S. attorney in East Texas when he did no such thing.

Trump, though, said the media would “slander and libel” him, and suggested that Ratcliffe remain in Congress.

Hey, here’s an idea for the president to consider. He ought to find someone with the gravitas of the outgoing DNI, former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, who is leaving because he and Trump had disagreements over the very thing we’ve been discussing here: the Russian threat to our democratic process. Coats blames the Russians for behaving with evil intent; Trump sides with the Russians. Game over for DNI Coats.

Oh, wait! Just how does the president find a grownup such as Coats to take over the DNI job if he’s going to insist that the intelligence presented to him is phony, that it’s wrong and that the Russians aren’t doing what the spooks are telling him?

Ratcliffe wasn’t qualified for the DNI job, the alleged embellishment notwithstanding. The POTUS needs a DNI to tell him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear.

As for the media that did their job, they performed a valuable public service in outing Ratcliffe as a Donald Trump toadie who wasn’t up to the job.

national news, national security, national security team

Trump can’t stomach being told the truth

Donald Trump’s decision to nominate John Ratcliffe as the country’s next Director of National Intelligence reveals a frightening, outrageous aspect of how the president wants to run our national security network … as if we didn’t see this already.

Ratcliffe is a congressman from Northeast Texas, representing a district once represented by the late, great Sam Rayburn. Ratcliffe would succeed Dan Coats as DNI and would be charged — according to the playbook — with providing the president unvarnished analysis of the threats to the nation’s security.

Ratcliffe is not wired that way. Coats has done it, as have many of the preceding DNIs who have held the office.

Trump wants a “loyalist,” someone who likely adheres to his own idiotic view that the Russian hack of our 2016 election is a “hoax” cooked up by the “fake news” and Democratic opponents.

Can there be anything more inherently frightening than to have a DNI who cannot or will not tell the president the truth? More to the point, can there be anything more dangerous to the nation to have a president who won’t hear the truth?

Rep. Ratcliffe showed his partisan stripes while questioning former special counsel Robert Mueller this past week. He challenged Mueller’s probe into the Russian electoral attack. As some commentators have noted, Ratcliffe appeared to be auditioning for the nomination once it became known that DNI Coats would be “stepping down.”

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I cannot grasp how this president continues to lie, deceive and flim-flam his way through the duties to which he has been charged. Even more astonishing is how he manages to cling to that 38 to 40 percent core of Americans who insist he is “telling it like it is” and speaks for them.

John Ratcliffe comes from that fervent base of Trump supporters. The nation does not need a Trump lackey in the post of DNI, which requires someone who is unafraid to tell the president the hard truth about the existential threats that put this country in danger.

If the president has a vast reservoir of talent waiting for the call to come to work in the White House — which he boasts of having — he can do a lot better than John Ratcliffe as head of the nation’s intelligence apparatus.

My fear, though, is that he doesn’t care about quality. It’s all about political loyalty.

Dangerous.