Trump says Ratcliffe is no longer his pick for director of national intelligence

[mahatmakanejeeves]

30. Washington Post opinion: "Another Trump nominee goes down in flames. This is a big one."

The Plum Line • Opinion

Another Trump nominee goes down in flames. This is a big one.

By Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent
August 2 at 4:13 PM

Well, that certainly didn’t take long:

President Trump announced Friday that Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.), his embattled pick to lead the nation’s intelligence community, was withdrawing from consideration and would remain in Congress.

The lawmaker was facing intense questions about padding his résumé and a lack of experience, which led to a lukewarm reception on Capitol Hill.

Trump said he would announce a new pick for director of national intelligence shortly.

In tweets, Trump said that Ratcliffe was being treated “very unfairly” by the media.

The fault, as always, lies with Trump’s opponents and the media. The “unfair” treatment to which Trump refers was likely this story in The Post, which showed that Ratcliffe’s claims about his experience were seriously exaggerated.

Ratcliffe had asserted that “as a U.S. Attorney, I arrested over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day.” But that was false: He didn’t arrest them; the relevant operation ended up charging only 45 poultry workers with low-level offenses; and people involved in it “could not recall Ratcliffe playing a central role.”

This comes after stories showing that his claims to have tried terrorism cases were also inflated.

The office of DNI has only existed since 2005, and before Trump’s election had been filled by people with long careers of service in the military, the intelligence world or both. President George W. Bush appointed Mike McConnell, a Navy vice admiral who had been the director of the National Security Agency. President Barack Obama appointed James R. Clapper Jr., an Air Force lieutenant general who had run the Defense Intelligence Agency.

But those claims of Ratcliffe’s work stoppin’ terrorists and ropin’ illegals were almost the entirety of his qualifications for the job, other than six months sitting on the House Intelligence Committee.
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Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plum Line blog. Follow https://twitter.com/paulwaldman1

Greg Sargent writes The Plum Line blog. He joined The Post in 2010, after stints at Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine and the New York Observer. Follow https://twitter.com/theplumlinegs