Much of the public might be unfamiliar with Michael Ellis, but as regular readers might recall, he was a rather important figure during Donald Trump’s first term. In 2017, for example, Ellis’ name first started appearing in national reports when he was accused of using his position in the White House counsel’s office to feed sensitive information to one of the president’s congressional allies.
Two years later, then-Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified under oath that Ellis was one of the officials responsible for transferring the summary of the infamous 2019 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the National Security Council’s top-secret computer server.
It was against this backdrop that Trump announced this week that he’s appointing Ellis to a new position: The Republican operative is now the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Let’s also not forget about John Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman from Texas who served as the director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term. He developed quite a reputation, too.
In early October 2020, for example, The New York Times summarized Ratcliffe’s work this way: “He has approved selective declassifications of intelligence that aim to score political points, left Democratic lawmakers out of briefings, accused congressional opponents of leaks, offered Republican operatives top spots in his headquarters and made public assertions that contradicted professional intelligence assessments.” He also dismayed officials inside the CIA, the report added, by releasing unverified intelligence as part of an apparent electoral scheme.
Around the same time, in an op-ed for The New York Times, John Sipher, a former CIA station chief, wrote, “It’s quite an accomplishment, but in only five months, [Ratcliffe] has already put himself in the running to be considered among the most destructive intelligence officials in U.S. history.”
After leaving office, Ratcliffe took a job with the Heritage Foundation and contributed to the Project 2025 project.
Ratcliffe is now the director of the CIA. It’s against this backdrop that The Wall Street Journal reported that the agency has also begun offering so-called buyout plans to the CIA’s entire workforce, as part of a broader effort to “bring the agency in line” with Trump’s agenda. The CIA appeared to be the first intelligence agency to tell its employees that they can quit their jobs and receive about eight months of pay and benefits as part of Trump’s push to downsize the federal government. … The agency is also freezing the hiring of job seekers already given a conditional offer, an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe said. Some are likely to be rescinded if the applicants don’t have the right background for the agency’s new goals.
NBC News confirmed the reporting, adding, “During his confirmation hearing, Ratcliffe promised to keep politics out of decisions involving intelligence and said he would not use loyalty tests as a basis for hiring or firing CIA personnel.” Senators, generously willing to overlook his record from Trump’s first term, apparently believed Ratcliffe’s assurances. As the CIA becomes increasingly Trumpified, it now appears that was unwise.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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