(CNN) Prior to last week, most Americans had never heard of John Ratcliffe. But in the testimony of former special counsel Robert Mueller before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, the second-term Republican Texas congressman put on quite a show.

He berated Mueller, the former head of the FBI, for stating that President Donald Trump was not fully exonerated in his eponymous report on his findings of the nearly two-year-long investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the possibility of obstruction of justice by the President.

Ratcliffe took particular issue with the second volume of Mueller's report, which details seemingly obstructive behavior by the President. Here's the key bit:

"So Americans need to know this, as they listen to the Democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle, as they do dramatic readings from this report: that Volume 2 of this report was not authorized under the law to be written. It was written to a legal standard that does not exist at the Justice Department. And it was written in violation of every DOJ principle about extra-prosecutorial commentary."

And then, suddenly, everyone in the political world had heard of Ratcliffe. Even as the buzz -- both good and bad -- from his attacks on Mueller began circulating, the news that he was under serious consideration to be the next Director of National Intelligence began to spill out into public view.

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