America’s Intelligence Chief Must Value Honesty Over Politics - The New York Times

Days before Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, testified last week that Russia had corrupted the 2016 presidential race and was once more “doing it as we sit here,” Mr. Coats appointed an experienced officialto oversee election security intelligence across the government in a newly created senior position. A bit late in the game, but it amounted to an act of courage in the face of Mr. Trump’s adamant refusal to acknowledge the problem and respond forcefully ahead of the 2020 elections.

Mr. Ratcliffe appears to have caught Mr. Trump’s eye by being a dogged critic of the Russia investigation and claiming that the F.B.I. harassed Mr. Trump. During Mr. Mueller’s testimony, Mr. Ratcliffe accused Mr. Mueller of violating American judicial norms by writing an inconclusive report about whether Mr. Trump committed a crime by obstructing justice.

Just before Mr. Trump picked him for the intelligence job, Mr. Ratcliffe was on the president’s favored source of intelligence, Fox News, smearing the special counsel’s report.

“Its conclusions weren’t from Robert Mueller, they were written by what a lot of people believe was Hillary Clinton’s de facto legal team, people that had supported her, even represented some of her aides,” he said.

Mr. Coats has defended the nation’s intelligence agencies in their unanimous finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He refused the president’s request to get James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, to end his investigation of Michael Flynn, the national security adviser who has since pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

These were not the only ways Mr. Coats rubbed Mr. Trump the wrong way. Time and again he delivered truths at odds with Mr. Trump’s preferred version of reality — saying that North Korea was unlikely to abandon its nuclear weapons, that Iran was abiding by the nuclear deal, that the Islamic State continued to be a threat in Syria.

The president made his position clear on Tuesday when he said that “the intelligence agencies have run amok” and that Mr. Ratcliffe would “rein it in.”

Source: The New York Times

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