Lawmakers voted by 49 votes to 44 to approve a Republican Congressman, a conservative from Texas as the sixth Director of the N. I. USA. The Agency, supervising the activities of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, including CIA, FBI, NSA, was created after the attacks of 11 September 2001. For the candidacy of Congressman only voted Republican against Democrats, that demonstrates the clear split in the upper house of Congress along party lines, which occurred against the background of growing animosity between trump and Democrats about political use of intelligence.
according to Politico, the current vote contrasts with the appointment of the predecessor Ratcliffe, the former Senator-the Republican from Indiana, Dan Coates. In 2017, during his candidacy, voted 85 senators and opposed by only 12 lawmakers. However, the appointment procedure of Ratcliffe was relatively simple: the voting on Thursday took place just two days after profile Senate intelligence Committee approved his nomination.
Initially, trump was offered a position to Ratcliff in July 2019, after the Republican representative from Texas has demonstrated aggressive rhetoric in their speeches, criticizing the former special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into the activities of the White house on the so-called “Russian dossier”. At that time, the current head of National intelligence was an ordinary member of the house Committee on intelligence and the judiciary. According to analysts, while it remained “a dark horse” even for key Republican senators. He soon withdrew his candidacy against the backdrop of recent questions for him from some Democrats about the “correctness” of his summary.
In February of this year, Ratcliffe received a second offer from trump once well established, while in the presidential team during the proceedings on impeachment. This offer he to give already failed. By Thursday even the Democrats in the Senate knew that Ratcliffe would succeed the acting head of the N. I. Richard Grenell, ally trump, who used his position to make major organizational changes in the national security apparatus. Grenell, who is also the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, gave to Congress declassified documents related to the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Democrats argue that the Republican party politicizes these documents to attack President Barack Obama and Vice-President of the USA Joe Biden, who likely will be the opponent of the Democrats glava White house in the November presidential election.
meanwhile
the leader of the democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer before the vote, said earlier this week he asked Ratcliffe if he agreed with the initial assessment of the intelligence community in January of 2017 that Russia had allegedly interfered in the last presidential election. “He was not able to confirm this,” said Schumer.
