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Did Susan Collins squash Ratcliffe for being too hard on Mueller? Furious Gowdy tells exactly who threw ‘Johnny’ under bus

August 4, 2019 | | Print Article
(FILE PHOTO by video screenshots)

Retired South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy is displeased by all the criticism and attacks that his good friend, Texan Rep. John Ratcliffe, has received ever since he, Ratcliffe, was nominated by President Donald Trump to replace Dan Coats as the director of National Intelligence.

The criticism and attacks reached such a fevered pitch last week that Ratcliffe finally withdrew his nomination in defeat, thus becoming yet another scalp in the left’s war against the president.

Gowdy revealed his displeasure during a discussion on Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Watch the full discussion below:


Source: Fox News

What irritated him the most is how the demonstrably left-wing media in particular seemingly believe Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) has what it takes to serve as the president of the United States but that Ratcliffe doesn’t have what it takes to serve as DNI.

“I want you to contrast two people for me, Maria,” he said to “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo. “Contrast Kamala Harris’s background. She’s the only member of the Senate that’s on Intel Judiciary and their version of Homeland Security.”

She’s specifically on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“John Ratcliffe is the only member of the House that is on those same three committees,” Gowdy added.

True. He holds seats on the House Judiciary Committee, House Intelligence Committee and House Homeland Security Committee.

“They’re both former prosecutors,” Gowdy continued. “Johnny’s been in the House longer than she’s been in the Senate. She’s qualified to have her fingers on the nuclear code? She’s qualified to be the leader of the free world, according to the media.”

He added, “But Johnny’s not qualified to lead an obscure agency that almost no one has heard of!? That is duplicity, and if the media’s wondering why Republicans think they’re in the tank for Democrats, look no further than last week.”

The president feels similarly about the media’s duplicitous treatment of Ratcliffe:

Ever since Trump publicly named Ratcliffe as his nominee to replace Coates late last month, the media has been publishing hit piece after hit piece about the man. The exact sorts of hit pieces, in fact, that it’s rare to see them ever write about Democrat-chosen nominees.

Bartiromo felt that Senate Republicans were also partly to blame for the withdrawn nomination.

“I am hearing that Mitch McConnell and Richard Burr basically blew him off,” she said. “He called them to have a meeting with them and they said no, no, no, we’re busy, we have the budget, we can’t do it and then they came up and said, ‘Well I don’t know. I don’t really know him.'”

Her argument was that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr could have been more “forceful” and proactive in pushing for Ratcliffe’s confirmation.

She added that, according to her sources, their tepid response to Ratcliffe’s nomination had been spurred by complaints from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

“I understand that [their behavior] partly was because they felt they could not deliver Susan Collins’ vote because Susan Collins said John Ratcliffe was awfully rough on Mueller,” an exasperated Bartiromo said. “So am I to believe here that John Ratcliffe did not get the job because he did his job too well in questioning Mueller!?”

It’s possible. During former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress last month, he was taken to task by the Texas congressman over his inexplicable decision to “determine that an investigated person [the president] was not exonerated because their innocence was not conclusively determined.”

This isn’t how the presumption of innocence works — and, apparently, pointing this out to Mueller was somehow wrong and improper, or so Susan Collins reportedly believes.

Gowdy also described how, when Ratcliffe first ran for office in 2014, he’d actually opposed his candidacy.

“I opposed John Ratcliffe coming to Congress,” the former congressman said. “I supported and endorsed his opponent and then I did the strangest thing … I got to know him.”

He continued, “He became my favorite member of the House, so last week was a tough week for those of us that know and care about him on a personal level. And it was also a tough week for people who care about facts … and also a tough week for people who care about equality and being treated justly.”

As for complaints about Ratcliffe’s tough questioning of Mueller, Gowdy had no idea what relevancy that had to his nomination, given as he’d allegedly been offered the job as DNI long before the former special counsel even testified to Congress.

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Vivek Saxena
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