WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has named Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, as acting director of national intelligence.
Grenell is a loyal and outspoken Trump supporter. He’s been U.S. ambassador to Germany since 2018.
He previously served as U.S. spokesman at the United Nations in the George W. Bush administration, including under then-Ambassador John Bolton.
The move puts a staunch Trump ally in charge of the nation’s 17 spy agencies, which the president has only tepidly embraced.
The appointment is already being criticized by those who say the job should be held by someone with deep intelligence experience.
Sen. Mark Warner (D/VA), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Trump had “selected an individual without any intelligence experience to serve as the leader of the nation’s intelligence community in an acting capacity.”
Warner accused the president of trying to sidestep the Senate’s constitutional authority to advise and consent on critical national security positions.
The criticism is coming from both sides of the isle.
Former GOP senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, told MSNBC that he has no problem that Grenell is a so-called ‘loyalist.’ but expressed reservations about his qualifications for the job.
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In other Trump-related news, Roger Stone, a staunch ally of the president, faces sentencing today on his convictions for witness tampering and lying to Congress.
The action in federal court comes amid Trump’s unrelenting defense of his longtime confidant that has led to a mini-revolt inside the Justice Department and allegations the president has interfered in the case.
Trump has denounced as a “miscarriage of justice” the initial recommendation by Justice Department prosecutors that Stone receive at least seven years in prison.
Attorney General William Barr then backed off that recommendation, prompting four prosecutors to quit Stone’s case.
(Associated Press)
