Senate confirms John Ratcliffe as next director of national intelligence in sharply divided vote
Source: Washington Post
The Senate confirmed Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) as the next director of national intelligence on Thursday, capping an unusually protracted process that saw the congressman withdraw his nomination last year in the face of bipartisan opposition, only to have President Trump challenge members of his own party and nominate Ratcliffe again seven months later.
The Senate voted 49-to-44 to confirm Ratcliffe along party lines. He received more votes against his confirmation than any DNI in the 15-year history of the office.
Ratcliffe will assume leadership of a sprawling federation of 17 intelligence agencies, with a collective budget of at least $60 billion, at an acutely vulnerable moment for U.S. national security. Still in the throes of a pandemic that has killed more than 90,000 people in the U.S. and wrought economic devastation, the U.S. is facing a dramatic escalation in tensions with China, the source of the viral outbreak; the prospect of repeated Russian interference in the 2020 election, which the intelligence community Ratcliffe will lead has said is all but certain; and painful decisions about how to support security and defense budgets when the government is spending trillions of dollars to keep the economy from collapsing.
... former colleagues and records showed that Ratcliffe didn’t play a significant role in any terrorism cases, contrary to his public claims. In a news release, Ratcliffe had touted his “special appointment as the prosecutor” in a high-profile terrorism financing case in 2008, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation. But a spokesperson later acknowledged that Ratcliffe’s assignment wasn’t to prosecute the case but rather “to investigate issues related to” why an initial prosecution of Holy Land Foundation resulted in a mistrial.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-confirms-john-ratcliffe-as-next-director-of-national-intelligence/2020/05/21/81a9f0be-9ada-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f_story.html
Here is the official roll call vote. Unsurprisingly, every yea vote was a Republican (including "moderate" Susan Collins), and every nay vote was a Democrat. Seven senators did not vote - including Democrats Patty Murray (WA) and Ed Markey (MA), as well as independent who caucuses with Democrats Bernie Sanders (VT).
= new reply since forum marked as read
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Does that make me an Executive Chef?
Anyone who has a TS/SCI Clearance to do just the minimum in a classified environment has more experience than Ratcliffe.
The Senate just gave away the keys to an inexperience political operative.
