WASHINGTON —
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the CIA signaled substantial changes are in store for America’s premier spy agency, telling lawmakers that it must be more aggressive both in collecting intelligence and pushing back against Washington’s adversaries.
John Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence at the end of Trump’s first term, told the Senate Intelligence Committee during his confirmation hearing Wednesday that the CIA’s human intelligence collection capability “isn’t where it needs to be.”
“We will collect intelligence, especially human intelligence, in every corner of the globe no matter how dark or difficult,” Ratcliffe said of his plans for the spy agency, should he be confirmed.
“We will conduct covert actions at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do,” he added.
Ratcliffe promised the CIA would deliver insights and information free of personal and political bias, and said that if confirmed, he would hold accountable employees and analysts who fail to perform up to standard and eliminate programs that shift focus from the CIA’s key responsibilities.
“If you have a politically motivated, bureaucratically imposed social justice agenda that takes up part of your attention, that can distract from the core mission of collecting human intelligence that matter and providing it to you in a timely way,” he said.
“To the brave CIA officers listening around the world, if all of this sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up and get ready to make a difference,” Ratcliffe said. “If it doesn’t, then it’s time to find a new line of work.”
Republican approval
Ratcliffe’s comments were met with approval from Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans, who praised his experience and his plans to refocus the CIA.
“The CIA needs to get back to its roots,” said committee chairman Tom Cotton. “Stealing secrets.”
“The nation needs a strong, capable and aggressive CIA,” Cotton said, calling Ratcliffe the right man for the job.
“I believe the men and women you will lead want to serve in just that kind of agency. They joined the CIA after all, not a church choir or a therapy session,” he added.
Democrats on the committee were, at times, more skeptical, asking Ratcliffe for assurances that officers and analysts will not be subjected to political loyalty tests.
“Mr. Ratcliffe today is your opportunity to reassure the men and women of the CIA that they [need] not fear reprisal for speaking truth to power — the most critical role of the IC [intelligence community],” said Democrat Mark Warner, the committee’s vice chair.
“I need your commitment that you will not fire or force out CIA employees because of their perceived political views, and that you will not ask these employees to place loyalty to a political figure above loyalty to country,” he said.
Ratcliffe responded, assuring lawmakers that he would not oversee a purge of the agency.
CIA role
“If you look at my record, and my record as DNI, that never took place,” Ratcliffe said. “That’s not something anyone has alleged and something I would ever do.”
Other lawmakers raised concerns about Trump’s history of mistrust of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, fueled in part by U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia sought to intervene in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump win.
“It seems to me you have an initial task that’s a little unusual but also very important, and that is to restore the confidence of the president-elect in the intelligence community,” said Senator Angus King, an independent.
“You need to get him to a place where he does have confidence in the judgments that are coming to him,” King added.
Ratcliffe said that was likely why he was chosen to lead the CIA.
“I think one of the reasons I have this opportunity for you all to consider me for confirmation is because President Trump knows and wants me to lead with integrity,” he told the committee.
Still, some former U.S. intelligence officials have taken a dim view of Ratcliffe’s qualifications to lead the spy agency despite his time as the nation’s top intelligence official.
Lingering doubts
“As DNI, Ratcliffe repeatedly demonstrated that his first priority was to advance Donald Trump’s political interests rather than to function as an apolitical intelligence chief,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA officer who now teaches at Georgetown University.
As examples, Pillar pointed to Ratcliffe’s decision to release a Russian intelligence assessment that seemed to back Trump’s allegations about nefarious activity by his opponent in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Pillar also noted that Ratcliffe also shunned transparency, refusing to attend Congress’ annual worldwide threats hearing “because the previous year’s assessment reported facts that Trump didn’t like.”
“To politicize the role of CIA director in a similar manner is just as damaging to the proper role of intelligence as politicizing the role of DNI,” Pillar told VOA. “There is no reason to expect Ratcliffe to perform any differently in this respect in the CIA job than he did as DNI.”
But other former officials saw Ratcliffe’s performance during the hearing Wednesday as a positive step.
“Ratcliffe performed well and should rightly obtain an easy confirmation,” said Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA chief of staff and former senior director of the White House Situation Room.
“He said all the right things about the importance of analytic and operational integrity and about the technical challenges facing CIA today,” Pfeiffer told VOA. “More importantly, he offered assurances he would assiduously avoid and counter politicization of the agency. … This will be reassuring to anyone inside CIA today who is nervous about the incoming Trump administration.”
Top threats
Ratcliffe told lawmakers the list of threats and challenges facing the United States is long, topped by an ever more aggressive China that is “committed to dominating the world economically, militarily and technologically.”
He also cited threats from transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels, Iran and its proxies, North Korea and multiple terror groups.
And he acknowledged the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The Russia-Ukraine war rages on, spreading devastation and increasing the risk of the United States being pulled into a conflict with a nuclear power,” Ratcliffe warned.
But he also said that Russia, unlike China, is unable to confront the U.S. across multiple domains at once.
Russia “falls into that category” of “countries that can’t compete with the United States in terms of kinetic firepower across the board,” Ratcliffe said.
“The Russians have to decide where they’re going to compete,” he said, noting that Moscow has chosen areas like hypersonic missile technology at the expense of overall troop readiness.
Ratcliffe further promised lawmakers he would ensure the CIA seeks answers to the cause of Havana Syndrome — the name given to a series of brain injuries and other serious health ailments that have struck hundreds of U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials.
And he voiced support for maintaining controversial U.S. surveillance authorities under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, calling it an indispensable tool, going as far to reject calls to require a warrant before accessing certain communications or data — a view that conflicts with positions previously espoused by other Trump nominees.
“You’re going to need to share your experience and your wisdom with the nominees for FBI and director of national security,” Republican Senator John Cornyn told Ratcliffe, “because we’ve had these conversations as well, and I think there’s some confusion.”
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