The Senate on Thursday confirmed John Ratcliffe to be President Donald Trump’s CIA director — one of the earliest confirmed cabinet nominees of the second Trump administration — who is tasked with overseeing the nation’s most powerful intelligence service.
Ratcliffe, previously director of national intelligence in the final months of Trump’s first term, was approved in a 74-25 vote. He sailed out of the Senate Intelligence Committee with a 14-3 vote on Monday, signaling broad bipartisan support.
As the director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, Ratcliffe — a former congressman and prosecutor from Texas — drew controversy over perceived politicization of intelligence assessments.
Shortly before the 2020 election, he declassified a CIA memo alleging Russian intelligence suggested Hillary Clinton devised a plan during the 2016 campaign to link Trump to Russia’s DNC hack as a distraction from her email server controversy. The decision was opposed by then-CIA Director Gina Haspel and other top intelligence officials.
Ratcliffe was also accused of distorting intelligence to overemphasize China’s role in a 2020 presidential election influence assessment to downplay election meddling activities from other nations, including Russia. Analysts, backed by a mediator in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said his interjections induced an “outrageous misrepresentation” of their findings.
He defended his actions in a confirmation hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 15.
“We will collect intelligence — especially human intelligence — in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult. We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgement or infect our products,” Ratcliffe testified.
The CIA governs America’s human-centered foreign intelligence collection and covert action operations. Analysts at the nation’s top spy agency often integrate information from diverse sources to prepare reports for officials. Those range from human intelligence gathered by spies to signals intelligence from the National Security Agency and satellite reconnaissance by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Under former director Bill Burns, the CIA played a prominent role in recent hostage-ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. It has also played a covert role in training Ukrainian intelligence operatives amid that nation’s ongoing war with Russia. Ratcliffe may be called upon for similar tasks.
In 2019, during his first term, Trump announced his intention to nominate Ratcliffe as DNI to replace Dan Coats. Trump commended Ratcliffe for his potential to oversee and curb intelligence agencies, reflecting the president’s frustration with FBI and special counsel investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Ratcliffe himself was also a staunch critic of the special counsel investigation, which he accused of being biased against Trump. But his limited experience in national security, along with allegations that he inflated his role in prosecuting terrorism cases, sparked controversy in Congress.
Democrats criticized his nomination as DNI, deeming him unqualified and too partisan for the role. Trump pulled the nomination in August 2019, but later renominated him in February 2020, where he was later confirmed. That vote narrowly passed the Senate, 49-44, without any Democratic support.
Trump’s skepticism toward the U.S. intelligence community stems from several factors. He repeatedly challenged the IC’s findings on Russian interference in the 2016 election, viewing them as attempts to undermine his legitimacy. He also perceived the IC as politically biased, accusing officials of working against his administration and fueling a narrative that a “deep state” was working against him.
Additionally, investigations into his handling of classified information, such as the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago probe during Joe Biden’s presidency, reinforced his belief that intelligence and law enforcement agencies were being “weaponized” against him.
Among a barrage of executive orders signed by Trump on Monday, one revoked the security clearances of some 50 former national security and intelligence officials who were signatories on an October 2020 letter saying that that contents cited in a major New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop had “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The laptop, later confirmed as authentic and not principally linked to any foreign power, has become a key talking point for Trump and his allies, who argue it suggests unethical or corrupt behavior by the Biden family.
That executive order notably instructs the director of national intelligence to report to the White House within 90 days, detailing any “inappropriate activity” within the intelligence community — involving contractors or security clearance holders — linked to the letter, and recommending disciplinary action if necessary. It’s not clear how Ratcliffe would be involved in these matters, though it could clash with his public commitments to remain an impartial intelligence official.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be DNI, would have to handle the contents of that report for the White House if confirmed to her post.
Gabbard herself has been broadly deemed a poor pick by current and former intelligence officials to be DNI in Trump’s second term, given her past statements echoing Russian talking points about NATO and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Some fear she could alter intelligence analysis to fit a political narrative.
In 2017, she held a controversial meeting with now deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally, who continued using chemical weapons on civilians after their encounter. Despite evidence of Assad’s involvement in atrocities, including a 2013 chemical attack that killed 1,400 people, she refused to deem him a war criminal when asked in 2019.
Gabbard’s nomination process may be in peril because of her past public support for Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who in 2013 leaked troves of classified documents about the signal intelligence agency’s global surveillance programs, Axios reported Wednesday. Her confirmation hearing is scheduled for Jan. 30, Semafor reported Thursday.
DefenseOne Science and Technology Editor Patrick Tucker contributed to this report.
