Politicians and former Obama administration officials – like John Brennan – ripping Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, before listening to him in his Senate confirmation hearing are jumping the gun, according to former CIA Director James Woolsey on Newsmax TV.
"Well, bluntly, Mr. John Brennan [former CIA director] is just about the last former senior intelligence official that I would listen to on a matter of this sort," Woolsey, a former Clinton administration intelligence chief and a Democrat, told Tuesday's "Newsmax Now."
". . . It's not something you can just take a stamp and say, 'well, I don't like his background, so I'm gonna say negative things about him.' I don't think that's really the way to pick intelligence officials."
Woolsey was asked by host John Bachman about Rep. Ratcliffe's lack of intelligence experience to be the next director of national intelligence, but Woolsey reminded the leader of the CIA was often filled with someone lacking intelligence experience, particularly when there was just one intelligence leadership position in the 1980s, he said.
"The most important thing I think is probably not the direct experience in intelligence but the commitment to call it straight," Woolsey said. "If you work hard, and read everything you can read, and talk to your people, and spend time with them, and figure out new ways to get information for the president, I think you can do a good job on this, but it won't happen without that kind of commitment.
"Whether the congressman has that kind of commitment or not, I don't know. I've never met him."
Regardless, Woolsey said, Rep. Ratcliffe better get used to criticism – something he should expect a lot of in his Senate confirmation process to replace DNI Dan Coats.
"I think if you're not getting flak you're probably not doing your job right," Woolsey said. "This is not the kind of job where people bask popularity because they have it. If they do, then they're probably not calling it straight."
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