Former Texas congressman John Ratcliffe confirmed as CIA director

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate confirmed former Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe to serve as the next director of the CIA on Thursday.

Ratcliffe represented the 4th Congressional District from 2015 to 2020, when he was confirmed to serve as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence. He held that position until the end of the first Trump administration. He was succeeded in Congress by Rep. Pat Fallon.

The Senate confirmed Ratcliffe’s nomination to lead the CIA on a widely bipartisan vote of 74-25. Twenty Democrats voted in favor, including Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who previously worked at the CIA. Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine also voted in favor.

Vice President JD Vance formally swore in Ratcliffe on the White House campus a few hours after the Senate vote, calling him a "great patriot, a guy that has the trust of the President, and I think really believes deeply in the mission, first of all, keeping Americans safe, but also doing it in a way that ensures that the American people have confidence in our national intelligence services."

Ratcliffe’s nomination was far less controversial compared to others Trump has named for his administration. In his confirmation hearing last week, he vowed to keep politics out of the agency’s work.

“It’s absolutely essential that the CIA’s director be apolitical,” Ratcliffe told the Senate Intelligence Committee during his confirmation hearing.

Ratcliffe’s confirmation was among a handful of other appointments that already had their confirmation hearings before Trump was sworn into office and faced little resistance from Democrats. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, was also swiftly confirmed to serve as Secretary of State on Monday evening.

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn both indicated they would support Ratcliffe early on, along with all of Trump’s other nominations.

“I’ve served alongside him, seen his advocacy for our national security firsthand, and watched as he was a fierce defender of President Trump, particularly in the face of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s frivolous impeachment attempt,” Cornyn, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote in an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News. “There is no question that he will continue to advance our state’s interests within the Trump administration.”

Still, his confirmation was not without some drama. Republicans tried to get him confirmed earlier in the week through a procedural measure that would cut down debate. But Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, objected, prolonging his confirmation process on the Senate floor.

Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, expressed frustration at the delay on the Senate floor Tuesday, asserting that Ratcliffe’s nomination should be an uncontroversial vote. Cotton noted that Ratcliffe had advanced out of the Senate Intelligence Committee on a 14-3 vote.

“Not many nominations are going to come out of committee with that kind of vote,” Cotton said. “I understand the Democrats are opposed to some of President Trump’s nominees, and I understand they want to vote no, and I respect that. But should we be denying the country a Senate-confirmed CIA director in such dangerous times for no good reason?”

The CIA director reports to the director of national intelligence, who oversees the nation’s 18 intelligence organizations. Trump picked former Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who announced she was switching parties last year, for that role. Gabbard’s selection for director of national intelligence was considerably more controversial than Ratcliffe’s due to her past comments sympathizing with Russian President Vladimir Putin and ousted Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

Before serving in the intelligence community, Ratcliffe was an ardent Trump supporter in Congress. He defended the president through his numerous legal woes, including his first impeachment. His devotion to the president prompted concerns from Democrats, who voted against his confirmation for director of national intelligence — the first time a nominee for the role did not get any support from the opposing party.

Some of those concerns of partisanship remained this year. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, objected to Ratcliffe’s handling of intelligence related to the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul. Wyden said Ratcliffe acted in a way that gave the Saudi’s cover as Trump was currying favor with Saudi leadership despite being legally mandated to reveal intelligence about the incident.

“In 2020, I opposed his confirmation to be Director of National Intelligence because of his partisanship and willingness to say whatever might please Donald Trump,” Wyden said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Unfortunately, John Ratcliffe’s actions as DNI only confirmed my concerns.”

Ratcliffe has defended his record in the role, saying it has mostly stood the test of time and that he operated with the best understanding of intel available at the time.

Ratcliffe vows to take a hawkish stance against U.S. adversaries, particularly China, including using riskier tactics and expanding the CIA’s human intelligence operations. He identified China’s technological interference, trans-national criminal organizations on the Mexican border, Russia, Iran and North Korea as the key national security threats.

“Good decisions are hostage to good information and good intelligence,” Ratcliffe said during his confirmation hearing. “The better we do at collecting human intelligence, the better decisions you all can make, the better analytic judgments analysts can make, and the fewer intelligence lapses or failures.”

“We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go, and doing things no one else can do,” he said.

He also assured senators he would reject any attempts from Trump’s political operation to interfere in the agency’s work and would never alter intel to placate the president.

Ratcliffe is a native of Heath, Texas, where he served as mayor from 2004 to 2012.