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During his time as Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe politicized our nation’s security. By declassifying selected intelligence, including Russian rumors, Ratcliffe endangered sources and methods just to satisfy Trump’s ego and personal vendettas. It’s important not to forget that it took Ratcliffe two tries to become DNI during Trump’s first term. Ratcliffe’s original nomination failed because of his tendency to exaggerate his record prosecuting terrorism and immigration cases during his time as U.S. Attorney. After the first Trump Administration ended, Ratcliffe became involved in Project 2025. Despite Donald Trump’s attempts to disavow it, Ratcliffe’s nomination is more evidence that Project 2025 will have immense influence in the Administration. Being CIA Director requires competence and the willingness to put country first. John Ratcliffe’s record shows the opposite – consistently undermining our national security all to please Trump. |
May 2020: Ratcliffe Was Sworn In As The Director Of National Intelligence. According to Fox News, “John Ratcliffe was sworn in Tuesday morning as the next director of national intelligence, taking the reins from Richard Grenell, who served in an acting capacity at the post for the last three months. Grenell swore in Ratcliffe at his new office. Ratcliffe was confirmed by the Senate last week on a 49-44 vote. His installment comes as the intelligence community once again finds itself in the middle of a political firestorm, this time over whether Trump associates were improperly ‘unmasked’ in intelligence reports during the latter days of the Obama administration.” [Fox News, 5/26/20]
Ratcliffe Was A Vocal Critic Of Special Counsel Mueller’s Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Election. According to Fox News, “He [Ratcliffe] was one of the most vocal critics of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.” [Fox News, 5/26/20]
Ratcliffe Approved Selective Declassifications Of Intelligence That Aimed To Score Political Points. According to the New York Times, “He [Ratcliffe] has approved selective declassifications of intelligence that aim to score political points, left Democratic lawmakers out of briefings, accused congressional opponents of leaks, offered Republican operatives top spots in his headquarters and made public assertions that contradicted professional intelligence assessments.” [New York Times, 10/9/20]
Ahead Of The 2020 Election, Ratcliffe Decided To Release Unverified Intelligence On Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign. According to the New York Times, “None of the moves have dismayed his critics, or intelligence officials inside the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, as much as Mr. Ratcliffe’s decision to release unverified intelligence last week that mentioned Hillary Clinton. Intelligence professionals said the material could be Russian disinformation, but even if its substance — that Russian intelligence had information that Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign planned to tie Mr. Trump to the Kremlin’s election hacks — were true, it hardly demonstrated anything nefarious about her.” [New York Times, 10/9/20]
The Classified Material Ratcliffe Laid Out Suggested That Russian Intelligence Had Acquired Information That Clinton Had Approved A Plan For Her 2016 Campaign To “Stir Up A Scandal” Against Trump By Tying Him To The Russian Hackers Who Broke Into The DNC Servers. According to the New York Times, “In a letter to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Ratcliffe laid out snippets of previously classified reports suggesting that Russian intelligence had acquired information that Mrs. Clinton had approved a plan for her 2016 campaign to ‘stir up a scandal’ against Mr. Trump by tying him to the Russian hackers who had broken into Democratic servers.” [New York Times, 9/29/20]
Ratcliffe Laid Out Snippets Of Previously Classified Reports In A Letter To Senator Graham, Chairman Of The Senate Judiciary Committee. According to the New York Times, “In a letter to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Ratcliffe laid out snippets of previously classified reports suggesting that Russian intelligence had acquired information that Mrs. Clinton had approved a plan for her 2016 campaign to ‘stir up a scandal’ against Mr. Trump by tying him to the Russian hackers who had broken into Democratic servers.” [New York Times, 9/29/20]
Ratcliffe Himself Said The Russian Intelligence Analysis “May Reflect Exaggeration Or Fabrication.” According to the New York Times, “The letter on Tuesday was the first time Mr. Ratcliffe had released material dismissed by other officials as unverified rumor. He initially embraced that assessment, saying that ‘the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.’ The intelligence agencies have stopped short of definitively assessing the material as disinformation.” [New York Times, 9/29/20]
The Special Counsel And The Republican-Led Senate Intelligence Committee Had Evaluated And Rejected The Information In The Years Since. According to the New York Times, “Other officials — including Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee — had evaluated and rejected the information in the years since, according to three current and former officials familiar with those inquiries.” [New York Times, 9/29/20]
Senator Warner Of The Senate Intelligence Committee Called The Declassification “Very Disturbing.” According to the New York Times, “‘It’s very disturbing to me that 35 days before an election, a director of national intelligence would release unverified’ rumors that originated from Russia, said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.” [New York Times, 9/29/20]
Ratcliffe Defended His Decision To Scale Back In-Person Election Security Briefings To Congress Ahead Of The 2020 Election. According to Fox News, “Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe defended his decision to scale back in-person election security briefings to Congress in favor of written reports and accused members of Congress of leaking information ‘within minutes’ of briefings. Ratcliffe told ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ he had been going above and beyond in briefing ‘not just the oversight committees but every member of Congress’ but will no longer do so. ‘Within minutes of one of those briefings ending, a number of members of Congress went to a number of different outlets and leaked classified information for political purposes,’ Ratcliffe told host Maria Bartiromo. ‘To create a narrative that simply isn't true, that somehow Russia is a greater national security threat than China.’” [Fox News, 8/30/20]
Ratcliffe Told Lawmakers That Providing Written Briefings Would Better Protect Sources And Methods. According to Fox News, “On Friday, Ratcliffe told lawmakers that his office ‘will primarily meet its obligation to keep Congress fully and currently informed leading into the Presidential election through written finished intelligence products.’ He wrote that it would better protect sources and methods while ensuring that it reflects ‘the highest analytic standards.’” [Fox News, 8/30/20]
Providing Only Written Briefings Denied Lawmakers The Opportunity To Ask Questions About The Intelligence. According to Fox News, “House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., accused the Trump administration of pushing a false narrative to downplay Russian interference in the 2020 election. ‘They're going to put it in writing now instead of giving an oral briefing. That doesn't make any sense unless the goal is not to allow members of Congress, the representatives of the American people, to ask questions,’ Schiff told CNN's ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday. ‘Concealing the truth is concealing Russians are again intervening to help the president in his reelection,’ Schiff said.” [Fox News, 8/30/20]
Current And Former Intelligence Officials Said Ratcliffe Endangered The Agencies’ Intelligence Collection Network With His Aggressive Declassifications. According to the New York Times, “Mr. Ratcliffe, current and former intelligence officials said, endangers the agencies’ intelligence collection network with his aggressive declassifications by risking the exposure of C.I.A. sources and National Security Agency methods of intelligence gathering. A memo he declassified on Tuesday, for example, could give Russian intelligence important clues about how the C.I.A. gathered information in 2016, according to two people familiar with the intelligence.” [New York Times, 10/9/20]
The C.I.A. And The National Security Agency Objected To Ratcliffe’s Declassifications. According to the New York Times, “Though the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency have already objected to Mr. Ratcliffe’s declassifications and would almost certainly try to block further releases, Mr. Trump has also given Attorney General William P. Barr the authority to declassify intelligence agencies’ secrets as part of the Justice Department investigation into the origin of the Russia inquiry.” [New York Times, 10/9/20]
John Ratcliffe Overrepresented His Involvement In Prosecuting Terrorism During His Time As A U.S. Attorney. According to NBC News, "Ratcliffe had been a federal prosecutor in Texas, and he boasted on his website about having 'put terrorists in prison.' NBC News and other news organizations found no evidence that he had ever prosecuted a terrorism case. He also misrepresented his involvement in the U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case, NBC News previously reported." [NBC News, 11/12/24]
John Ratcliffe Made Exaggerated Claims About His Participation In An Immigration Crackdown During His Time As A U.S. Attorney. According to The Texas Tribune, "President Trump’s choice to lead the nation’s intelligence community often cites a massive roundup of immigrant workers at poultry plants in 2008 as a highlight of his career. U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath, claims that as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Texas, he was the leader of the immigration crackdown, describing it as one of the largest cases of its kind. 'As a U.S. Attorney, I arrested over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day,' Ratcliffe says on his congressional website. But a closer look at the case shows that Ratcliffe’s claims conflict with the court record and the recollections of others who participated in the operation — at a time when he is under fire for embellishing his record. Ratcliffe played a supporting role in the 2008 sweep, which involved U.S. attorneys’ offices in five states and was led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, according to a Justice Department news release. The effort targeted workers at poultry processor Pilgrim’s Pride who were suspected of using stolen Social Security numbers. [...] Only 45 workers were charged by prosecutors in Ratcliffe’s office, court documents show. Six of those cases were dismissed, two of them because the suspects turned out to be American citizens. One of those citizens, a 19-year-old woman, was awakened in her home and hauled away by immigration agents, the woman said in an interview. [...] Leticia Zamarripa, a spokeswoman in ICE’s El Paso office who also participated in the operation, questioned Ratcliffe’s characterization of his role in the arrests. 'No, that doesn’t sound factual. That sounds incorrect,' she told The Washington Post. Zamarripa said she does not recall Ratcliffe being involved. 'The name doesn’t ring a bell,' she said." [The Texas Tribune, 8/2/19]
John Ratcliffe Was A Contributor To Project 2025. According to Forbes, "Trump named Ratcliffe as CIA director after the official previously served as Trump’s director of national intelligence; he’s credited as a contributor to Project 2025, with the agenda’s chapter on the intelligence community citing an interview with Ratcliffe about working in the first administration." [Forbes, 12/12/24]
October 2024: Trump Transition Co-Chair Stated He Would “Blacklist” Anyone With Ties To Project 2025. According to Forbes, "Trump is appointing people linked to Project 2025 despite transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick vowing ahead of the election to 'blacklist' anyone involved with the project from serving in the administration. 'Heritage, because of Project 2025, is radioactive,' Lutnick told The New York Post before the vice presidential debate in October. 'As in, none, zero, radioactive. So that’s a clear position.' The Trump transition team has not yet commented on its appointees’ ties to Project 2025." [Forbes, 12/12/24]
Donald Trump Disavowed Project 2025 During Campaign. According to Forbes, "Trump disavowed Project 2025 and denied having any connection to it during the election, though he has a number of ties to the Heritage Foundation beyond the people he’s hiring for his next administration. Trump has praised the Heritage Foundation’s work in the past, and the organization has boasted that Trump followed many of its policy recommendations during his first presidential term." [Forbes, 12/12/24]
John Ratcliffe Paid His Wife $43,500 To Manage His Campaign’s Finance Reports After He Had Left Congress. According to Forbes, "John Ratcliffe, the onetime Texas congressman who Donald Trump appointed to be his director of national intelligence, is terminating his campaign committee, according to a filing submitted to the Federal Election Commission Tuesday. Over the past 20 months, Ratcliffe’s campaign paid his wife, Michele, $43,500 to manage its largely dormant books. Payments to Mrs. Ratcliffe, a partner focusing on estate planning and cyber crimes at the Rockwall, Texas law firm of Lamberth Ratcliffe Covington, made up 36% of the campaign’s pending during the 2022 cycle. Ratcliffe’s campaign also shelled out $11,000 for 'website design' to the firm that built his personal site for him, a payment that could violate campaign-finance rules." [Forbes, 10/12/22]