Trump’s pick to be the new director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, has multiple embellishments on his resumééé.
He claims on his website and in campaign material that he tried suspects accused of funneling money to Hamas. As it turns out, that’s not true. He never prosecuted a case in the matter.
He was an interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas during George W. Bush’s administration. He was basically a placeholder in the position. But, Ratcliffe claims he oversaw terrorism cases, plural. The only example of any significant cases that concern national security is one trial where he prosecuted an Iraq War veteran who pleaded guilty to possessing a pipe bomb.
Ratcliffe also claims that during his time at U.S. attorney that he “arrested” over 300 illegal aliens in a single day that were illegally employed by chicken processing plants in five states. His House website makes the same claim. He did help bring charges against 280 noncitizens on identity fraud charges and other crimes to secure employment, but he didn’t arrest anyone. Even Matlock has more arrests than Ratcliffe because he was Sheriff of Mayberry first.
He also claimed on his 2016 campaign website and in a bio on his House website that he “put terrorists in prison.” This was the case involving a Muslim charity sending money to Hamas. Three former government lawyers and a former senior FBI official, when asked about John Ratcliffe’s involvement, said, “who?” They said he didn’t contribute any substance to the case. Plus, there were no convictions against the charity. One attorney said the mistrial hit the Justice Department like a “two-by-four in the middle of the forehead.” This is what Ratcliffe is basing his claim of putting “terrorists in prison.”
Also, it turns out he was never a member of the Backstreet Boys and didn’t co-write “I Want It That Way.”
The director of intelligence should have actual experience with national intelligence. The man Ratcliffe is replacing, Dan Coats, did not have to pad his resume. Coats predecessor, James Clapper, served as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (ask Ratcliffe or Trump what that is), and as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. Later, Trump revoked Clapper’s security clearance because he said negative things about Trump. Ratcliffe, on the hand, has skeptics in his own party. He’s less of an actual analyst of intelligence and more of a Trump cultist.
Donald Trump also likes to boastéé about accomplishments he’s never accomplished. At one of his campaign stops, he displayed Trump steaks that were NOT Trump steaks and were actually purchased at a local butcher shop. Trump also did NOT help at the site of the World Trade Center, as he claimed earlier this week. In reality, after the WTC fell down from the attack by al Qaida, he boasted about how he now had the tallest building in New York City. And, just in case you’re a Trump revisionist, he didn’t “create” this economy. Like most things he has, Trump inherited a great economy. Unlike the fortune he claims he built but was inherited from his father, he inherited the economy from Barack Obama.
And, when Trump is throwing children into cages, he’s not locking up MS-13 gang members. In 2018, Trump said unaccompanied minors “look so innocent but aren’t in reality.” His acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Mark Morgan, once told Fox News that he can tell which unaccompanied minors will become gang members by looking into their eyes. He told Tucker Carlson, “I’ve looked into their eyes and said, ‘that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member.’” Apparently, Mark Morgan got the job after Miss Cleo turned it down.
While MS-13 is horrible and violent and everything you should hate, they’re not invading the country or posing as fake families. MS-13 was created in the United States and it recruits within the U.S. They don’t import. They’re not even that large of an organization. According to the Justice Department, the gang only accounts for 10,000 of the 1.4 million gang members nationwide. They’re not growing as they had the same number of members a decade ago. They average about 35 murders a year nationwide, which is fewer than murders committed by gangs you never heard of, and possibly fewer than those committed by Trump supporters. If Trump wants to focus on gang activity, he should direct his agencies to combat all of it, not just focus on the one that’s meat for his racist base.
When you think about it, when someone kills minorities in this nation while echoing Trump’s racist rhetoric, that makes Trump a recruiter of terrorists. Donald Trump is more dangerous to American communities than MS-13.
Ratcliffe has never arrested a terrorist in his life. Neither has Donald Trump. Instead, Trump is throwing kids in cages.
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