John Ratcliffe To CIA--Is This Winning?

I hate to sound like a killjoy. In other circumstances I would’ve liked this. As it is, in the context of the other national security appointments (Rubio and Waltz and the Middle East related appointments), I see this now as more of a sop to the Trump true believers. Understand that John Ratcliffe is probably a good guy and was a stand up guy during Trump 1.0. However, this time is different. Director CIA can investigate his own people, but otherwise that’s a job for the FBI and DoJ—key personnel choices coming up! But considering that the new SecState and NSA—Rubio and Waltz—were both on the intel committees during Trump 1.0, who really thinks Trump will expose the entire Russia Hoax? The intel committees were intimately involved in the Russia Hoax. Ratcliffe at CIA will be in a marginal position as far as any of that goes. Releases of classified information will end up being a consensus decision. My guess right now is that the consensus will be against much of anything.

Of course, Trump could take all this into his own hands, as far as the declassification issue goes. I’m no longer holding my breath. Will he release what remains of the Kennedy assassination docs? I’m now skeptical on that score as well.

Will Ratcliffe pull the CIA inside out otherwise? Sundance, FWIW, is skeptical. For example:

One last word of caution. In the prior administration Ratcliffe never fought for declassification of records, which led to President Trump exiting his second term without vital issues ever seeing sunlight. As DNI John Ratcliffe never declassified the critical information that President Trump was urgently requesting in the final months of his presidency. Ratcliffe maintained the silo structure without conflict.

John Ratcliffe’s best friend is Trey Gowdy.