What to know about John Ratcliffe, Trump's pick for CIA director

News

What to know about John Ratcliffe, Trump's pick for CIA director

2024-11-13 10:05 Last Updated At：10:10

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would appoint John Ratcliffe to serve as CIA director in his new administration.

Here are four things to know about the Republican tapped to lead the U.S. government's premier spy agency:

Ratcliffe served as director of national intelligence for the final months of Trump's first term, leading American spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic and as the U.S. government contended with foreign efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.

His past experience in intelligence makes him a more traditional pick for the job, which requires Senate confirmation, than some rumored loyalists pushed by some of Trump’s supporters.

As DNI, Ratcliffe participated in an unusual night-time news conference just weeks before the 2020 presidential election in which he and other officials accused Iran of being responsible for a barrage of emails meant to intimidate voters in the U.S.

He also faced criticism for declassifying Russian intelligence alleging damaging information about Democrats from the 2016 election even while acknowledging that it was unverified. Democrats decried the move as a partisan stunt that politicized intelligence.

Ratcliffe made headlines again weeks later when he rejected claims by dozen of former intelligence officials that the disclosure of emails from a laptop dropped off by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

“The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there’s no intelligence that supports that,” he said.

Ratcliffe was elected to Congress in 2014, but his visibility rose in 2019 as an ardent defender of Trump during the House’s first impeachment proceedings against him.

He was a member of Trump’s impeachment advisory team and strenuously questioned witnesses during the impeachment hearings.

“This is the thinnest, fastest and weakest impeachment our country has ever seen,” Ratcliffe said after the Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump over a phone call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

When former special counsel Robert Mueller appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Ratcliffe was one of the more ardent Republican interrogators, forcefully questioning the prosecutor and blasting the report he produced.

Though Ratcliffe ultimately got the DNI job, it wasn't smooth sailing.

In fact, he withdrew from consideration in August 2019 after just five days as he faced growing questions about his experience and qualifications.

Trump put Ratcliffe's name forward to replace the departed Dan Coats. But Democrats openly dismissed the Republican as an unqualified partisan, and Republicans offered only lukewarm and tentative expressions of support. Multiple news stories questioned Ratcliffe’s qualifications and suggested that he had misrepresented his experience as a federal prosecutor in Texas, a job he held before joining Congress.

Ratcliffe said in a statement at the time that he remained convinced that he could have done the job “with the objectivity, fairness and integrity that our intelligence agencies need and deserve.”

“However,” he added, “I do not wish for a national security and intelligence debate surrounding my confirmation, however untrue, to become a purely political and partisan issue.”

He was put up again for the job the following February and confirmed in May 2020 by a sharply divided Senate.

Ratcliffe has repeatedly sounded the alarm about China, calling the country the top threat to U.S. interests and the rest of the free world.

That view places him in good company with other incoming Trump administration officials, including Michael Waltz, Trump's pick for national security adviser, who called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to China's involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its ongoing mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uyghur population.

“The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically,” Ratcliffe wrote in a December 2020 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. ”Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.”

China is bracing for renewed tensions with the Trump administration — and possibly a tariff war — while national security and intelligence officials who track China remain concerned about economic espionage, cyberattacks, technological advances and disputes over Taiwan that could further roil relations.

South Korea's ruling party head supports suspending Yoon's powers, boosting chances of impeachment

2024-12-06 10:07 Last Updated At：10:10

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s ruling party chief showed support Friday for suspending the constitutional powers of President Yoon Suk Yeol for imposing martial law this week, in a bombshell reversal that makes Yoon's impeachment more likely.

Opposition parties parties are pushing for a parliamentary vote on Yoon's impeachment on Saturday, calling his short-lived martial law declaration “unconstitutional, illegal rebellion or coup.” But they need support from some ruling party members to get the two-thirds majority needed to pass the impeachment motion.

During a party meeting, People Power Party leader Han Dong-hun stressed the need to suspend Yoon's presidential duties and power swiftly, saying he poses a “significant risk of extreme actions, like reattempting to impose martial law, which could potentially put the Republic of Korea and its citizens in great danger.”

Han said he had received intelligence that Yoon had ordered the country’s defense counterintelligence commander to arrest and detain unspecified key politicians based on accusations of “anti-state activities” during martial law.

"It's my judgment that an immediate suspension of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s official duties is necessary to protect the Republic of Korea and its people,” Han said.

Han on Thursday had said he would work to defeat the impeachment motion even though he criticized Yoon’s martial law declaration as “unconstitutional.” Han said there was a need to “prevent damage to citizens and supporters caused by unprepared chaos.”

Impeaching Yoon would require support from 200 of its 300 members. The opposition parties who jointly brought the impeachment motion have 192 seats combined. PPP has 108 lawmakers.

Han was previously regarded as a close associate of Yoon as they spent years working together as prosecutors and he served as Yoon’s first justice minister. But after Han entered party politics and became PPP leader, their ties soured badly as they differ over how to handle scandals involving Yoon and his wife.

Han leads a minority faction within the ruling party, and 18 lawmakers in his faction voted with opposition lawmakers to overturn Yoon’s martial law decree. Martial law ultimately lasted about six hours, after the quick overrule by the National Assembly forced Yoon's Cabinet to lift it before daybreak Wednesday.

If Yoon is impeached, he would be suspended until the Constitutional Court rules on whether to remove him from office or restore his presidential power. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the country's No. 2 official, would take over presidential responsibilities.

The main liberal opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung said in a televised speech Friday that it was crucial to suspend Yoon as “quickly as possible."

Lee said Yoon's martial law enforcement amounted to “rebellion and also a self-coup.” He said Yoon’s move caused serious damage to the country’s image and paralyzed foreign policy, pointing to criticism coming out of the Biden administration and foreign leaders canceling their visits to South Korea.

Yoon has made no immediate response to Han's comments. He hasn't made public appearances since he made a televised announcement that his martial law decree was lifted. But his office said Thursday that Yoon accepted the resignation offer of Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, who opposition parties and Han alleged recommended the martial law imposition to the president.

Prosecutor General Shim Woo Jung told reporters Friday that the prosecution plans to investigate rebellion charges against Yoon following complaints filed by the opposition, which claims his stunt amounted to a “self-coup.” While the president mostly enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office, the protection does not extend to allegations of rebellion or treason. It wasn’t immediately clear how the prosecution plans to proceed with an investigation on Yoon.

The prosecution on Thursday placed an overseas travel ban on Kim Yong Hyun.

Democratic Party spokesperson Jo Seoung-lae said Friday the party is considering filing a legal complaint against People Power Party floor leader Choo Kyung-ho, whom they accuse of attempting to facilitate Yoon’s martial law enforcement.