Ratcliffe defends end of election security briefings, accuses lawmakers of leaks

[Right_in_Virginia]

Ratcliffe defends end of election security briefings, accuses lawmakers of leaks
The Hill, Aug 30, 2020

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Sunday defended his announcement that in-person election security briefings to Congress will end, saying the move was necessary to prevent leaks.

“When I went through confirmation, people watched that. They heard me make a couple of promises,” Ratcliffe said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures. “One of them was to always follow the law. The other was that I would do everything I could to protect the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, allowing people to leak it for political purposes.”

“The action that I announced yesterday is entirely consistent with that. I reiterated to Congress, look, I'm going to keep you fully and currently informed, as required by the law. But I also said, we're not going to do a repeat of what happened a month ago, when I did more than what was required, at the request of Congress, to brief not just the Oversight Committees, but every member of Congress,” he said.

"And yet, within minutes of that -- one of those briefings ending, a number of members of Congress went to a number of different publications and leaked classified information, again, for political purposes, to create a narrative that simply isn't true, that somehow Russia is a greater national security threat than China," he added.


More:  https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/514337-ratcliffe-defends-end-of-election-security-briefings-accuses

[PeteS in CA]

Democrats Outraged the Trump Administration Won't Give Them In-Person Intel Briefings Anymore

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/08/30/democrats-outraged-the-trump-administration-wont-give-them-in-person-intel-briefings-anymore-n865023

There’s no law that says the executive branch has to brief Congress on all intelligence matters. The practice is a courtesy offered by the president to congressmen of both parties.

The briefings are supposed to be classified. But if that’s true, why do they always seem to end up on the front pages of the Washington Post and New York Times the very next day?

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe informed the House and Senate that the administration would no longer give in-person intelligence briefings on election security to members of Congress. Instead, they will give written briefings because Congress leaks like a sieve.

Leaks and shampeachments have consequences. Written briefings mean that when selective leaks happen, the deceptive selectivity can be exposed and refuted. The Dems and their MSM-shills need difficult to disprove, "______ said verbally," claims.