Speaking truth to Trump is the ticket to termination

I ended yesterday's post about President Trump doing nothing to defend us against another Russian cyberattack in 2020 with this:

     "Fortunately, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is doing something, forming a coalition of representatives from a number of counterintelligence agencies to coordinate their efforts."

Whereupon, Trump released the statement (via tweet, of course) that Coats is leaving his position as Director of National Intelligence.

Here's how Vox's Alex Ward put it:

"President Donald Trump's Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats will soon be replaced because he kept doing the one thing Trump couldn't stand:  telling the truth."

Trump also announced his intention to nominate for the central counterintelligence position Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), who most recently was in the spotlight in the Mueller hearings where he "fiercely sided with the president" (All quotes will be from Alex Ward unless otherwise stated.)

Coats has obviously, and sometimes publicly, deviated from the president's preferred version of truth, most notably in regard to Russian interference in our elections -- and their obvious plan to do it again in 2020.   In fact, during the Mueller hearings, Mueller was at his most animated when talking about the Russian ongoing threat to our upcoming election.   "They're doing it now as we speak," Mueller said.

Ward:  "The likely reason Trump was so disappointed in his intelligence chief isn't that he did his job badly -- it's that he did it well."

"The job of the director of national intelligence is to oversee the entire US intelligence community -- a sprawling collection of agencies that includes the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA as well as offices within the Pentagon, State Department, and even the Department of Energy.

"The DNI is also meant to serve as 'the principal adviser' to the president on all 'intelligence matters related to national security.'  And it's in that capacity that he seems to have run afoul of the president."


In other words, he told the president what he didn't want to hear and even, at times, contradicted what the president was saying in public.

The surprising thing is that Coats kept his job as long as he did.   But now he is to be replaced by Rep. Ratcliff, who some characterize as having few qualifications for the job -- but who is a complete Trump loyalist.

In other, frightening words:   Trump now has a toady as Attorney General heading the Justice Department;   and, if confirmed by the Senate, he will have a Director of National Intelligence who will tell him, not necessarily the truth, but what Trump wants to hear.

Which means that now we cannot trust what is reported as the findings of our intelligence community.   And how long with the CIA and FBI Directors stay around if they have to answer to someone like Ratcliff?

Ralph