Section:GDN 1N PaGe:17 Edition Date:190730 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/7/2019 20:22 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Tuesday 30 July 2019 The Guardian •
17PHOTOGRAPH: SHAWN THEW/EPAAction Modi?
Indian PM goes wild
on TV with Bear Grylls
Page 18Canada manhunt
Nation gripped by
search for two ‘killers’
Page 25▲ Residents fl ee the family-oriented
Gilroy festival after shots were heard Donald Trump
signs an act
creating a fund
for 9/11 victims
yesterday▲ Dan Coats,
director of
national
intelligence, has
criticised TrumpTrump accused of trying to neutralise spy
agencies after naming loyalist as director
Julian Borger
WashingtonDonald Trump’s nomination of an
inexperienced but loyal partisan to
become the director of national intelli-
gence (DNI) was condemned last night
as a naked attempt to “neutralise” US
spy agencies as an independent and
objective voice on global aff airs.
Former intelligence offi cials reacted
angrily to the announcement that Dan
Coats , one of the most senior nationalsecurity fi gures willing to contradict
the US president, is to leave the post
next month after disagreements with
Trump over policy and intelligence,
including on Russian interference
in the US election and North Korean
nuclear capabilities.
Trump has indicated that he may
not wait for his nominee, the Repub-
lican congressman John Ratcliff e , to
receive Senate confi rmation before
wresting control over the offi ce of the
director of national intelligence , which
coordinates the work of the other 16intelligence agencies. “The Acting
Director will be named shortly,” Trump
tweeted on Sunday, announcing the
departure of Coats and his choice of
Ratcliff e, who has been a staunch
defender of the president in Congress.
However, the statute that estab-
lished the role of the DNI states that
in case of a vacancy, the principal
deputy director acts in the role until a
replacement is confi rmed. That would
be Sue Gordon , a career offi cial with
three decades’ experience.
Trump has repeatedly criticisedthe US intelligence agencies, which
provoked his ire by concluding that
Russia interfered in the 2016 presiden-
tial election with the goal of getting
him elected. Coats was seen as vul-
nerable because he provided sober
presentations of intelligence that
were sometimes seen as an obstacle
to Trump’s policy aims.
Last year Trump said he saw no rea-
son to believe Russia had interfered in
the 2016 election. Coats commented:
“We have been clear in our assess-
ments of Russian meddling in the 2016election and their ongoing, pervasive
eff orts to undermine our democracy.”
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen , a former
CIA offi cer, said: “Trump is consoli-
dating his personal control over the
intelligence community. I fear that
there is a slow takeover of the norms
and procedures of governance by this
president, amassing unprecedented
executive power.” Mowatt-Larssen,
now at Harvard University’s Belfer
Center for Science and International
Aff airs , added. “To do that he needs to
neutralise or at least silence the intelli-
gence community. He has been doing
that for three years, but this takes it to
the new level.”
Trump described Ratcliffe as a
“highly respected congressman” and
“a former US attorney”. However, he
was a US attorney for only a year in the
eastern district of Texas, and was the
mayor of the Texa s town of Heath , with
a population of about 6,.
He became prominent on television
talk shows for his outspoken defence of
Trump in the face of the report by the
former special counsel Robert Muel-
ler on the Trump campaign’s contacts
with the Kremlin.
“Donald Trump was the one tell-
ing the truth the whole time,” Ratcliff e
told Fox News, and suggested that the
real crimes had been committed by
Democrats and the former FBI direc-
tor James Comey.
If Ratcliff e is confi rmed and seeks to
politicise intelligence work further, it
could lead to a clash with intelligence
professionals, warned John Sipher , a
veteran of the CIA’s national clandes-
tine services.
“If he tries to spin intelligence in
a diff erent way that it is presented
to him, his workforce would rebel,”
Sipher said, predicting there would be
a rise in resignations and leaks.Three die as gunman, 19, opens
fi re at Californian garlic festival
Lois Beckett and Vivian HoA six-year-old boy, a girl aged 13 and
a man in his twenties are dead after a
gunman opened fi re at a garlic festival
in Gilroy, northern California – a fam-
ily-friendly event where visitors line
up for garlic fries and ice-cream in the
sunshine and amid live music.
Santino William Legan, 19, openedfi re on Sunday afternoon with an
“assault-type rifl e” in the style of
an AK-47, local authorities said. He
injured a dozen people and killed three
before being shot dead by police offi c-
ers, who rushed him within a minute
of bullets being heard.
The shooting left residents shaken.
“Not in a million years can you believe
this is happening,” said Rosa Martinez-
Ryan. She said the focus of the Gilroy
festival was: “Family, family, family.”
At the White House yesterday,
Donald Trump said: “We express our
deepest sadness and sorrow for the
families who lost precious loved ones.”
He called the shooting horrifi c and the
gunman a “wicked murderer”.News organisations reported that
Legan, who was from the area, had
posted a photo from the garlic festival
on his Instagram account on Sunday,
since taken down. “Ayyy garlic festi-
val time,” he wrote. “Come get wasted
on overpriced shit.” Another post ref-
erenced a racist, sexist essay.
Neighbours said the Legan fam-
ily had raised their sons in a house
searched by police and were “very nice
people” and “very devoted parents”
who had moved in nearly 20 years ago.
California has some of the US’s most
stringent gun laws , banning most
assault weapons and the sale, transfer,
manufacture and possession of large
capacity ammunition magazines.“My heart breaks for all of our Bay
Area neighbours who attended the
Gilroy Garlic Festival,” tweeted Cal-
ifornia congressman Eric Swalwell,
who campaigned for the Democratic
2020 presidential nomination and was
the only one of two dozen candidates
to focus primarily on stronger gun con-
trol. “We need gun reform and we need
it now,” he said.
Senator Kamala Harris, who rep-
resents California and is running for
president, tweeted: “I’m grateful to
the fi rst responders who are on the
scene in Gilroy, and my thoughts are
with that community tonight. Our
country has a gun violence epidemic
that we cannot tolerate.”РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS