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WaPo: National Security

Rep. John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, faces grilling by Democrats in confirmation hearing Tuesday

Ellen Nakashima,

Shane Harris and

Seung Min Kim

May 4, 2020 at 11:13 p.m. UTC

Rep. John Ratcliffe, President Trump’s pick to be the nation’s top intelligence official, is expected to face pointed questions Tuesday from Senate Democrats about his qualifications for the job and his willingness to provide candid intelligence free from political considerations.

Ratcliffe’s original nomination last summer was withdrawn after five days in the wake of criticism that the Texas Republican overstated his résumé and lacked the qualifications to serve as the nation’s top intelligence official.

[Ratcliffe withdraws from consideration for intelligence chief less than a week after Trump picked him]

The hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee — the first to be held during the pandemic lockdown — comes as senior administration officials have been pressing spy agencies for evidence to back an unproven theory that a government lab in Wuhan, China, was the source of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of almost 70,000 Americans.

So far that effort has produced no information to back up the claim, which is at odds with the view of many scientists, according to current and former U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, without citing examples, said “there’s enormous evidence” that the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab that has conducted extensive research on coronaviruses in bats and has partnered with American researchers.

The position of director of national intelligence, created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to improve coordination among the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, is a politically fraught one in the Trump era. The intelligence workforce and senior leaders have been repeated targets for the president, who has accused them of conspiring to undermine his presidential campaign and has cast doubt on their conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign in part to help Trump get elected.

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