I wish that I had a more encouraging answer to the question the title of this blog post poses. Representative John Ratcliffe’s withdrawal of his name from consideration as the next Director of National Intelligence brings to mind Senator Chuck Schumer’s warning to President Trump just before his inauguration in 2017:
“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
This warning constitutes a “Kinsley gaffe” – accidentally telling the truth about Washington, DC. It not only predicted the appointment of Robert Mueller to pursue the Russia Hoax, it probably explains why Ratcliffe’s nomination was so quickly torpedoed.
President Trump blamed the media:
Our great Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe is being treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media. Rather than going through months of slander and libel, I explained to John how miserable it would be for him and his family to deal with these people….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
….John has therefore decided to stay in Congress where he has done such an outstanding job representing the people of Texas, and our Country. I will be announcing my nomination for DNI shortly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
I am certain that Rep. Ratcliffe and his family hated the media attacks on him and dreaded the media ordeal that was sure to follow, but in the end, I suspect that both he and President Trump realized that he was unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate. For one thing, he may have slightly exaggerated his role in prosecuting terrorists:
Ratcliffe, Republican of Texas, had said on his House website and in campaign materialthat he had tried suspects accused of funneling money to the Hamas terrorist group. But instead, an aide said, Mr. Ratcliffe had investigated side issues related to an initial mistrial, and did not prosecute the case either in that proceeding or in a successful second trial.
This may be a gray area, since he was US Attorney and therefore responsible for the work of his staff, but anything that can be used to impugn his integrity is enough for those who want to protect the intelligence community from skeptical scrutiny by representatives of the taxpayers who fund their work.
Sundance of Conservative Treehouse, among others, has long been a critic of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) for being allied with, and in essence in the back pockets of Deep State intel figures. He writes:
The epicenter of the deepest defensive mechanism of the Deep State is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). The SSCI is the bunker, the intelligence manipulation operations headquarters. The SSCI is where the political nuclear weapons (black files and IC gathered political surveillance research) are housed. As a direct consequence the SSCI is the most corrupt and manipulative committee in all of congress. (snip)
Let me be perfectly clear. The issue is the SSCI.
The weaponized issues of corrupt DC endeavors are always associated with the SSCI. It is also not coincidental that ODNI Dan Coats was Senator Dan Coats…. and where was his tenured membership prior to becoming Director of National Intelligence? Yup, the SSCI.
Pressure is now building for President Trump to appoint Sue Gordon, currently the Deputy DNI – and therefore acting DNI once Coats leaves the position – as his permanent replacement. But if President Trump thought her a reliable ally in getting to the bottom of the attempt by the intelligence community – in alliance with foreign intelligence services – to pull off the Russia Hoax coup, he would have chosen her, not Ratcliffe, in the first place.
But where is Trump to find someone with the expertise, guts, and spotless background (nothing short of perfection, since the intelligence community can dig up everything a person has ever done) to win Senate confirmation? Them line that Kevin Costner immortalized (in a CIA conspiracy theory Oliver Stone movie, to be sure) seems appropriate:
“Now, we’re through the looking glass here, people.”
At least AG Barr has the power to declassify documents, and push to uncover secrets from the intelligence community. Perhaps if strong enough evidence to ensure convictions of James Comey or any of the FBI underlings, especially those in the counterintelligence operation, is in hand, such people can be persuaded to turn state’s evidence in return for leniency. And they can implicate other members of the intelligence community. Or, perhaps the investigators in Italy, where the top levels of their intelligence agency have resigned in the wake of their collaboration with the coup plotters, can provide evidence that would be stonewalled here. Or maybe even Britain, where Boris Johnson now commands MI 5 and MI 6, can help uncover the miscreants.
But Chuck Schumer’s warning continues to resonate. They may become the most famous words in his long political career. Our Republic teeters on a knife edge if unelected intelligence bureaucrats can scheme to undo a presidential election and escape accountability.
Photo credit: US Congress
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I wish that I had a more encouraging answer to the question the title of this blog post poses. Representative John Ratcliffe’s withdrawal of his name from consideration as the next Director of National Intelligence brings to mind Senator Chuck Schumer’s warning to President Trump just before his inauguration in 2017:
“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
This warning constitutes a “Kinsley gaffe” – accidentally telling the truth about Washington, DC. It not only predicted the appointment of Robert Mueller to pursue the Russia Hoax, it probably explains why Ratcliffe’s nomination was so quickly torpedoed.
President Trump blamed the media:
Our great Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe is being treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media. Rather than going through months of slander and libel, I explained to John how miserable it would be for him and his family to deal with these people….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
….John has therefore decided to stay in Congress where he has done such an outstanding job representing the people of Texas, and our Country. I will be announcing my nomination for DNI shortly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
I am certain that Rep. Ratcliffe and his family hated the media attacks on him and dreaded the media ordeal that was sure to follow, but in the end, I suspect that both he and President Trump realized that he was unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate. For one thing, he may have slightly exaggerated his role in prosecuting terrorists:
Ratcliffe, Republican of Texas, had said on his House website and in campaign materialthat he had tried suspects accused of funneling money to the Hamas terrorist group. But instead, an aide said, Mr. Ratcliffe had investigated side issues related to an initial mistrial, and did not prosecute the case either in that proceeding or in a successful second trial.
This may be a gray area, since he was US Attorney and therefore responsible for the work of his staff, but anything that can be used to impugn his integrity is enough for those who want to protect the intelligence community from skeptical scrutiny by representatives of the taxpayers who fund their work.
Sundance of Conservative Treehouse, among others, has long been a critic of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) for being allied with, and in essence in the back pockets of Deep State intel figures. He writes:
The epicenter of the deepest defensive mechanism of the Deep State is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). The SSCI is the bunker, the intelligence manipulation operations headquarters. The SSCI is where the political nuclear weapons (black files and IC gathered political surveillance research) are housed. As a direct consequence the SSCI is the most corrupt and manipulative committee in all of congress. (snip)
Let me be perfectly clear. The issue is the SSCI.
The weaponized issues of corrupt DC endeavors are always associated with the SSCI. It is also not coincidental that ODNI Dan Coats was Senator Dan Coats…. and where was his tenured membership prior to becoming Director of National Intelligence? Yup, the SSCI.
Pressure is now building for President Trump to appoint Sue Gordon, currently the Deputy DNI – and therefore acting DNI once Coats leaves the position – as his permanent replacement. But if President Trump thought her a reliable ally in getting to the bottom of the attempt by the intelligence community – in alliance with foreign intelligence services – to pull off the Russia Hoax coup, he would have chosen her, not Ratcliffe, in the first place.
But where is Trump to find someone with the expertise, guts, and spotless background (nothing short of perfection, since the intelligence community can dig up everything a person has ever done) to win Senate confirmation? Them line that Kevin Costner immortalized (in a CIA conspiracy theory Oliver Stone movie, to be sure) seems appropriate:
“Now, we’re through the looking glass here, people.”
At least AG Barr has the power to declassify documents, and push to uncover secrets from the intelligence community. Perhaps if strong enough evidence to ensure convictions of James Comey or any of the FBI underlings, especially those in the counterintelligence operation, is in hand, such people can be persuaded to turn state’s evidence in return for leniency. And they can implicate other members of the intelligence community. Or, perhaps the investigators in Italy, where the top levels of their intelligence agency have resigned in the wake of their collaboration with the coup plotters, can provide evidence that would be stonewalled here. Or maybe even Britain, where Boris Johnson now commands MI 5 and MI 6, can help uncover the miscreants.
But Chuck Schumer’s warning continues to resonate. They may become the most famous words in his long political career. Our Republic teeters on a knife edge if unelected intelligence bureaucrats can scheme to undo a presidential election and escape accountability.
Photo credit: US Congress
via American Thinker Blog
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