Former CIA intelligence officer on John Ratcliffe

[Duppers]

Former CIA intelligence officer, Ned Price talked with Joy Reid who substituted for Rachel last evening.

Please begin listening at the 12:30 mark:

A partial rough transcript of what Ned Price said:

"If Ratcliffe is confirmed, it will be by and large the most dangerous assault on the intelligence community that we have ever seen so far. He would be the Bill Barr of the intelligence community. He would keep all the secrets. If he sits at the top of the 17 intelligence agencies, he will keep what the president wants secret.
....
It will be inherent to his job to classify and declassify. To keep what the president wants Secret. He will have full access to all the intelligence that Mueller and his team collected over time.
...
If John Radcliffe is nominated and if he is confirmed to this post, the intelligence committee can kiss their chances of seeing those findings goodbye."

Chilling. He can classify every redacted portion of the Mueller Report. Then we'll have an impeachment investigation hearing based only on the info which is now public.

[BSdetect]

1. We are being strangled by traitors

[spanone]

8. ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧ ⇧⇧ ⇧

[Duppers]

23. Indeed. Traitors, otherwise known as...

the GOP.

[watoos]

2. It's too soon,

we need to keep our powder dry.

[Duppers]

3. Yesterday would've been a good time.

But hey, they needed a recess.

[oasis]

4. Don't let this muthafucka skate through the hearings. nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

5. Block him at the confirmation hearing...or kiss our security goodbye.

Enjoy your recess, Congress.

[bpj62]

6. The Senate Confirms

The house has nothing to do with his confirmation. The Senate is also in recess so unless Mitch calls them back nothing will happen until September. It does force the house leadership to rethink thier strategy because if he reclassifies everything then Muellers investigation was wasted.

[CaptainTruth]

7. Not wasted, he can't classify what's already public...

... & what's public from the Mueller Report is more than enough for several articles of impeachment.

[Hortensis]

18. THIS.

Btw, EVERY person who didn't vote and vote Democrat owns this. There are no innocent, able nonvoters, so smacking themselves about the head is appropriate.

Blaming committed Democrats for the whirlwinds we did not sow but must reap is not.

[zentrum]

9. This is NOT a helpful statement.

Rat running the intelligence community goes way beyond Mueller and impeachment in its importance.

Statements like this make it far more likely that the Repugs will confirm him.

They oppose impeachment, so Rat would be their guy.

Even though their chances of retaining the WH may actually be better with an incumbent Pence.

Anyway, Mueller is chump change compared to the dangers we'll be in---war, election fraud, nuclear proliferation etc.

[pangaia]

10. This looks like it may be the final nail in the coffin.

I don't know WHAT to suggest,

but SOMEBODY better do SOMETHING right now !!!!!!!!

It is REPUBLICANS who are traitors and who are overthrowing the U S government and turining it into a right-wing authoritarian dictatorship.
Sure WE know that but.. not too many other americans do.

They just go about their blind lives.... soccer moms, bus driving moms and dads, Wendy's servers, teachers, landscape crews, baseball players, lawyers, dentists (especially fucking right wing dentists)....................................

[SayItLoud]

11. Who's in tRUMP's ear? He is too stupid to know how to put all these people in place!

Who's the TRAITOR to America advising him??

[watoos]

13. You nailed it.

I have been wondering about this for a year now. We had Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, but what is going on is above their pay grade. Someone is a master at psychological warfare, at propaganda.

I have wondered about a guy named Dr. Steve Pieczernik. He is an Alex Jones pal and does 4 minute videos on the internet, mainly YouTube. He has talked about events that have happened way back when Trump was first running. He came out with the "deep state" shit. He stated that Trump is doing a counter-coup to stop Hillary's coup.

I have zero proof that this guy is the brains behind Trump, but he is a skilled hostage negotiator, he is a mind bender.

Check out his videos on YouTube if you dare. Don't look directly into his eyes. He's probably just a guy starving for attention and I'm probably just paranoid, but who knows in today's world?

[watoos]

12. Oh I do declare, where is my fainting couch?

C'mon people, we know we can count on Susan Collins to vote no, and Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are rebels. See, we have nothing to worry about. Why I do declare, I forgot about the White Horse prophecy guy, Mitt Romney, he isn't up for re-election for another 5 1/2 years, why I bet he votes no on Rat.

I guess what I'm trying to say nicely is that we are so f*cked.

[ewagner]

14. I'm not up on all the arcane rules of the Senate....

..but isn't it possible for a single Senator to put an indefinite "hold" on a nomination?

Seems to me that this technique was utilized to slow up/kill Obama appointments.

Somebody know about this?

[Autumn]

15. Is there some kind of rule that only Republicans can put a "hold" on these things?

They seem to do that a lot.

[DeminPennswoods]

16. There was also a bit about the statute that created the DNI

position after 9/11. The statute says the DNI SHALL have extensive counterintelligence experience - not should have or nice to have. Ratcliffe doesn't have it.

[Bayard]

17. Other than the fact he has NO experience for the job,

All he has is kissing up to tRump. Statues be damned, like all his other appointments.

What are the rules for recess appointments? Can he do that without Congressional approval?

Can he get the numbers in the Senate to confirm?

I would think he may be able to classify the Russian interference part of Mueller's report, but how would the obstruction findings be under military oversight? And didn't the House get all of the redacted info?

[Duppers]

20. Nope, the House cannot see all of it

"...Barr indicated that there were four categories of material he is redacting in the version that is expected to be made available to Congress: (1) material subject to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) that cannot be made public; (2) classified information that implicates the sources and methods of the intelligence community; (3) information that is sensitive based on other ongoing law enforcement matters; and (4) information that would “unduly infringe” on the “personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.” Nadler has indicated he intends to wait until the redacted report is delivered before making a decision about whether to issue a subpoena for the full report. He also set forth his views in a letter to Barr on April 1 regarding why the judiciary committee should be entitled to see the entire unredacted report and underlying grand jury materials."

https://www.lawfareblog.com/mueller-report-redactions-will-congress-ever-see-all-mueller-grand-jury-material

As CaptainTruth reminded us above, the House has enough to proceed with impeachment as it now stands. The Senate will still be the problem and claim there's not enough info to impeach him.

For Ned Price, an intelligent intelligence* man, to say what he did however, there must be many other ramifications.




*Have never use those two words back to back before.

[Duppers]

21. "Can he do that without Congressional approval?"

Good question. He has done it, as you said, by recess appointments.

And i think he has enough rubber stamps in the Senate to get most anything he wants.

[Hortensis]

19. "It will be inherent to his job to classify and declassify."

Massively increased censorship for political purposes would be inevitable.

[Duppers]

22. Another problem: IF RATcliffe classifies...

...most of the documents, then prosecuting Trump after he leaves office will be impossible, will it not?


Also, from now on said person should be referred to as RATcliffe, don't ya think?