After a slew of surprising nominations, current and former intel officers reflect on Trump’s pick for CIA director
From faith that John Ratcliffe will take the job seriously to fears of unwavering loyalty to Trump
The re-election of Donald Trump has caused me to look back closely at 2016 and the four years that followed, to revisit certain moments and people that could have been lost to time. But we’re also coming off of 24 hours of the President-elect announcing unprecedented cabinet picks: A Fox News host to be Secretary of Defense. A former Congresswoman who visited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is often accused of parroting Russian disinformation as the Director of National Intelligence. And I’m hearing that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was told that Trump plans to put in Kash Patel as the CIA’s Chief Operating Officer, a prospect that some downright fear and will not require Senate confirmation.
Suddenly, Trump’s pick of John Ratcliffe, his former Director of National Intelligence, to lead the CIA looks like one of the “more rational choices” by comparison, a former senior intelligence officer tells me. “I think he'll take the job seriously. And I think the agency will step up to the plate and do what it always does best and says to a new, incoming director. ‘Hey, look, we're here to make you succeed. We're here to work with you. We want to make sure that you represent what this agency can provide a president in the best possible light.’”
Ratcliffe had been a Republican congressman from Texas who sat on several committees, but logged just about six months on the House Intelligence Committee before he began overseeing 17 intelligence agencies. Trump initially chose him in 2019, but Ratcliffe withdrew after concerns about his qualifications. (“John Ratcliffe’s entire claim to fame was yelling at Robert Mueller for 15 minutes,” one Democrat said at the time.) Then Trump selected Ratcliffe again in 2020 and he was confirmed.
So began Ratcliffe’s appointment. “People were annoyed that Beth Sanner [a seasoned intelligence officer and briefer] was pushed out of the Oval [Office] when he started,” another former senior intelligence officer told me. Ratcliffe “took over all briefings. Trump just wanted to hear from him.”
A public clash with the intelligence community came on Sep. 29, 2020. It was weeks before Election Day, and Ratcliffe declassified unverified Russian intelligence that claimed Hillary Clinton had greenlit “a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” between Trump and Moscow in 2016.
In the document, Ratcliffe wrote, “The IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.” Yet hours after the release, he told Fox News, “This is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the Intelligence Community.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham saw it as a way to push for bipartisan curiosity about the FBI monitoring presidential campaigns. “The question is did the FBI investigate the allegations against Clinton like they did Trump? If not, why not? If so, what was the scope of the investigation? If none, why was that?”
But career intelligence officials were said to have objected to Ratcliffe’s release of Russian intel. It gave the optics of politicizing intelligence, of trying to sway voters’ opinions before the election.
And in announcing Ratcliffe’s nomination, Trump reached back into the past, taking hold of that exact moment. He praised Ratcliffe for “exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation.”
Besides that moment, Ratcliffe’s role as the country’s top intelligence official “turned out to be relatively harmless,” a third former senior intelligence officer tells me. He showed genuine interest in the intelligence community, the source said. “But the key question is whether he will speak truth to power and protect foreign relationships.”
A fourth former and senior intelligence officer had stronger words. “America deserves a better CIA,” the person said. “A CIA that is charged with finding the unvarnished truth, vetting that information, and presenting it to our policymakers, enabling them to make informed policy decisions. Third-world despots use their security services for regime preservation and I hope that selecting a CIA director isn’t solely based on his loyalty to the President.”
A fifth former officer said that between Ratcliffe and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, “a drunk monkey juggling grenades would cause less damage.”
Some sources still in the intelligence community expressed relief that Trump did not choose Kash Patel to lead the CIA, others discussed trepidation for what lies ahead. Time will tell what Ratcliffe will prioritize while serving under Trump.
China has historically been a priority for Ratcliffe. He wrote in 2020 that “the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.” He said he briefed the House and Senate Intelligence committees, telling them that China is targeting members of Congress six times more than Russia had, and 12 times more than Iran.
In 2022, the former prosecutor co-authored an opinion piece on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, writing, “Given the urgency, is there an explanation for what seems to be the slow and partial distribution of authorized assistance?” He also emphasized that the burden to support Ukraine should be distributed among allies and that “ensuring Putin’s defeat will be integral to addressing another core American interest: deterring Communist China and containing the Iranian government.”
From the moment he was declared the winner, many of the sane people knew this was gonna be a circus. To say that it has exceeded my expectations is an understatement. This is by turns comical and terrifying. America and the world are literally hanging in the balance. If anything this only amplifies my anger at those who foisted this shitshow on us all.