Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence debacle just became a disaster for him

| 10:20 pm EDT August 1, 2019
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Yesterday morning, Palmer Report brought you the story of how Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence nominee John Ratcliffe is in deep trouble. He’s not in trouble just because he appears to have falsified his record as a federal prosecutor. He’s in trouble because Senate Republicans, who have to confirm him, are starting to publicly grumble about the nomination, as a way of trying to get Trump to withdraw it. Now the whole thing has gone from debacle to disaster.

Donald Trump ousted Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats because he wasn’t personally loyal. While Trump waits to see if John Ratcliffe is confirmed, Trump wants immediate personal allegiance from the position, so he announced on Twitter that he’ll be naming the Acting DNI shortly. The trouble: that’s illegal, and a key Senate Republican just said as much.

Republican Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr is telling CNN that he believes Trump is violating the law by trying to arbitrarily pick his own Acting DNI, when the law requires that Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon be named the Acting DNI. Burr just made it orders of magnitude more difficult for Trump to name anyone but Gordon to the acting position.

If Sue Gordon were loyal to Donald Trump, he would have simply allowed her to become Acting Director of National Intelligence. Now, with his John Ratcliffe nomination falling apart, Trump could be stuck with an Acting DNI for some time – and it’s increasingly looking like he’ll be stuck with Gordon as DNI. This will means he’s gained nothing at all, for now at least, by ousting Coats – and he’s created an ugly scandal for himself for no gain.