May 19, 2020

Wyden Votes No on Ratcliffe for Director of National Intelligence

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, released the following statement after voting no on the nomination of Rep. John Ratcliffe to serve as director of national intelligence:

“John Ratcliffe is the least qualified, most partisan nominee to be director of national intelligence since the creation of the position. Worse still, his confirmation process revealed additional concerns that require the Senate to reject his confirmation. 

“First, Representative Ratcliffe has demonstrated a pattern of politicizing the findings of the Intelligence Community, including refusing to accept the IC’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Donald Trump and by asserting that Russia’s actions did not change the outcome of the election, an assessment the intelligence community has never made. If Representative Ratcliffe is willing to ignore or misrepresent public intelligence assessments, there is no telling how he will represent intelligence that is still classified. Neither the Congress nor the American people would have any reason to trust his testimony or his other public statements.

“Second, Representative Ratcliffe repeatedly danced around questions about whether the government can conduct warrantless wiretapping entirely outside the FISA statute. At a time when a strong bipartisan majority of the Senate supports more reform of FISA, a nominee for director of national intelligence who won’t even commit to the guidelines and oversight of that law should be cause for alarm for senators of both parties.”

###