With Intelligence Nominee, Trump Ensures an Ally Will Have the Post

The case, United States v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, was one of the government’s most prominent efforts to shut down funding of terrorist organizations in the decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A Muslim charity had been sending money to Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. But Mr. Ratcliffe played no part in the substance of the case, which was prosecuted in a different district, said three former government lawyers and a former senior F.B.I. official directly involved.

Mr. Ratcliffe has worked to correct his inflated claims, including deleting a 2015 news release on his House website that said “he convicted individuals funneling money to Hamas,” and a line from another part of the website stating that he “put terrorists in prison.”

Mr. Ratcliffe served as interim U.S. attorney for Texas’s Eastern District for less than year, between the departure of one presidential appointee in 2007 and the arrival of another.

In 2008, he coordinated an immigration raid on Pilgrim’s Pride, a chicken processor, in which 280 foreign nationals were arrested at plants in five states. During his 2016 congressional campaign, he said, “I am opposed to amnesty — period. But don’t just take my word on it. Ask any of the over 300 illegal aliens I arrested in a single day.”

In fact, 45 foreign nationals were arrested at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant in Texas that day, according to local news reports, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, Mr. Ratcliffe joined Mr. Ashcroft to form Ashcroft Sutton & Ratcliffe, a law firm working on corporate governance and regulatory issues.

In 2014, Mr. Ratcliffe mounted a successful primary challenge for the House seat held by a 91-year-old fellow Republican, Ralph Hall. Though Mr. Ratcliffe initially ran as a Tea Party deficit hawk, Mr. Trump won 76 percent of his district, and he followed the president’s lead as the federal deficit surged.

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