Joe Biden is weighing whether to pull one of the Senate's two independents, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, into his Cabinet as the director of national intelligence, a possibility "under serious consideration," a source told Politico.
"You want intelligence to be truthful and unvarnished and as straightforward as possible — not what you want to hear, not what supports your policy positions," King, a member of the Senate's Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, told AP earlier this year.
"Because if you don't get that kind of information, you're liable to make catastrophic mistakes."
King's critique came as President Donald Trump had played loyalists Amb. Ric Grenell and then ex-Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, in that role in the past year.
Ratcliffe was a vocal advocate for Trump during the House impeachment inquiry, famously saying the "president is not above the law, but he surely is not below it." Grenell, then acting DNI, is now a vocal surrogate of the Trump campaign during the legal election challenge, most notably in Nevada.
King is "a diligent and thoughtful member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for eight years, and in that role has provided effective oversight of the intelligence community," according to former Clinton administration Defense Secretary William Cohen.
"He would be a very capable candidate for DNI," Cohen told Politico.
"Biden knows this world well and will appoint serious and credible professionals to restore the morale in the intelligence community which has been badly harmed by the recent appointment of unqualified political appointees to senior positions."
Communications director Matthew Felling told Politico in a statement: "Sen. King is a committed public servant with an abiding, independent Maine spirit and a deep knowledge of the intelligence community," adding he "has a long track record of advocating for a clear-eyed, fact-based IC, which operates free of political influence in order to best serve America's national security interests."
According to Maine law, if a vacancy occurs for the office of U.S. senator, the governor appoints an interim senator until an election can occur. Janet Mills, the current governor of Maine, is a Democrat
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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