As I laid out here, I’ve been going through the transcripts from Jim Jordan’s search to find people who politicized intelligence, like his investigation showed John Ratcliffe to have done.
And in addition to the way Jordan exposed new information about Ratcliffe politicizing intelligence, Jordan also helpfully elicited an intelligence analysis of Trump’s dictatorial personality.
A Republican staffer was asking Mike Morell why he sent an email thanking those who signed the 50 spook letter, in which Morell said the 2020 election was the most important since the Civil War. And then, violating the rule that you never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer, the staffer then asked why Morell said that.
Q In an email you sent to signatories thanking them for signing on, you described this as, quote, the most important election since 1860 and 1864 when the very existence of the country was on the ballot.
[snip]
Q Why did you believe that this was the most important election since 1860 and 1864?
So Morell answered, drawing on his training analyzing the personality traits of world leaders.
I have to tell you that, you know, spending 33 years at CIA and watching literally hundreds of world leaders during that time, President Trump’s personality traits deeply concerned me, what I believed to be deep narcissism, what I believed to be deep paranoia, what I believe to be a type of sadism where you — not sexually, of course, but a type of sadism where you, you know, are happy when your opponents have been injured in some way — I’m talking politically — that those were all traits that I saw in foreign leaders who did significant damage to their country and significant damage to the democracies of their country. I’m thinking — you know, I’m thinking of Mugabe in Zimbabwe. I’m thinking of Chavez in Venezuela. I’m thinking of Putin in Russia. So I was deeply concerned about the potential impact of President Trump on our democracy.
And, you know, my fear, in my view, was borne out by his failure to act on January 6, 2021. So that’s what I meant when I wrote that. That’s what I was thinking.
Q The public statement —
Chairman Jordan. You couldn’t have been thinking about January 6, 2021, because —
Mr. Morell. No. I wasn’t thinking about January 6th. I was thinking about everything I said up to that point, sir. You’re correct.
To Jordan’s credit, he caught Morell seeing, in January 6, confirmation of his analysis.
Which it was.