WASHINGTON — Donald Trump has long viewed the country’s spy agencies with suspicion, accusing them of undermining his first term and campaigns. Now that he is return to the White HouseTrump’s promises to overhaul America’s intelligence agencies put him on a collision course with one of the most secretive and powerful parts of the government.
Trump announced on Tuesday that he is appointing John Ratcliffe to head the CIA. Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman from Texas, served as director of national intelligence in the final months of Trump’s first term and led the U.S. government’s spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ratcliffe does a more traditional choice for the position, which requires Senate confirmation, than some rumors that loyalists are under pressure from some Trump supporters.
For the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the start of Trump’s second administration is a way to perform a reset often challenging relationship with a leader who has historically dismissed them as the deepest of the deep state — Trump’sfor the thousands of federal employees who carry out the government’s work, regardless of who is president.
For Trump, the return to power offers an opportunity to make good on promises to clean up officials he believes have tried challenge his leadership And criticize his actions.
Former and current intelligence officials are also watching for clues as to whether Trump will use U.S. intelligence to inform foreign policy and national security decisions, or whether he will realize the fears of critics, who worry that he spill secrets or strive for it arm intelligence work against Americans.
“If he engages in retaliation and cleaning house, it will impact the agency. We’re going to lose people, and there’s going to be a fear: ‘What’s going to get me in trouble politically?’” said Douglas London, a 34-year CIA veteran who now writes about intelligence and teaches at Georgetown University.
In selecting Ratcliffe to lead the nation’s top spy agency, Trump chose a loyalist prepared to defend him in some of his most politically charged battles in Washington. While serving in the House of Representatives, Ratcliffe was part of Trump’s advisory team first impeachment.
As director of intelligence during the final days of the 2020 election, Ratcliffe angered Democrats declassifying the Russian intelligence services in which he alleged damaging information about Democrats during the 2016 race, even as he acknowledged it may not be true.
Given his experience in Congress and the intelligence community, Ratcliffe is seen as a relatively traditional choice for the post of CIA director. House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, praised Trump’s selection in a statement, saying Ratcliffe “knows what it takes” to lead the agency and counter threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea to go.
If confirmed by the Senate, Ratcliffe will be responsible for implementing whatever changes Trump has in mind for the CIA. Trump has said he wants a complete overhaul.
“We will clean out all the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them,” Trump said in a 2023 video that recirculated after his victory last week. “The departments and agencies that are armed will be completely overhauled.”
In an effort to head off any problems with the newly elected president, intelligence agencies emphasize their nonpartisan mission and their usefulness to any new president seeking to understand a world complicated by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and the growing partnership between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
London said that in his experience, intelligence officials work hard to avoid any appearance of partisanship and put their constitutional oath above politics.
“There’s very little that agency officials can do,” London added, “except to show, ‘We’re here, we’re on your team, we’re here to support you.’”
Intelligence officials would not say whether Trump has received an intelligence briefing yet, but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement saying it is following a standard procedure for new presidents dating back to the election of Dwight Eisenhower.
“ODNI is acting in accordance with the tradition, established since 1952, of providing intelligence briefings to the President-elect,” the agency wrote.
During his time in the White House or during his campaign, Trump was anything but traditional and showed a hostility toward the country’s spy agencies the likes of which we have not seen since Richard Nixon, who believed that the CIA and other agencies were trying to destroy his presidency. undermine.
Trump often transported by rail against the CIA and other spy agencies, accusing them of undermining his first administration and preventing him from retaking the White House. He has that too accused intelligence officials for questioning his relationship with him Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump received fewer intelligence briefings as president than any other recent commander in chief. In 2021, President Joe Biden suggested that Trump would no longer receive the standard intelligence briefings given to former presidents. Calling Trump “erratic.”.”
Trump was also accused of it mishandling secret documents at his estate Mar-a-Lago – a case now stuck in the courts those prosecutors try to relax after the elections.
Trump’s victory gives him a mandate to carry out his vision for national security and intelligence, said Elbridge Colby, who served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense in the first Trump administration.
Colby said wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, along with growing rivalry in China, show that Trump has no time to be sensitive to the country’s national security and intelligence agencies, likening them to the Titanic that sank gone to an iceberg.
“If you turn the Titanic 90 degrees, people will fall out of their bunk beds, chandeliers and beautiful plates will break,” Colby said on Tucker Carlson’s Internet show on Sunday. “But that’s where we are. …President Trump went against the system.”