President Trump said on Tuesday that he believes the U.S. intelligence community has "run amok," and that Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), his controversial nominee to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, would "rein it in."
Why it matters: Ratcliffe, who defended Trump and "downplayed the threat posed by Russia" at former special counsel Robert Mueller's hearing last week, is not well-known by many Republican senators or trusted by Democrats, per Politico. Democrats worry that as a "relentless critic of the Russia investigation," Ratcliffe would turn the director of national intelligence into a partisan position, in addition to lacking the necessary experience for the nation's top intelligence job, the NYT reports.
