U.S. lawmakers confirmed a second key member of President Donald Trump’s national security team Thursday, voting 74-25 to make John Ratcliffe the 25th director of the country’s premier spy agency.
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence at the end of Trump’s first term, took the oath of office about two hours later, as administered by Vice President JD Vance.
Vance called Ratcliffe a “great patriot” and said he is someone who has the trust of the president.
Ratcliffe now will head an intelligence operation that Trump and Republicans have criticized for a failure to cultivate information on critical developments in places like Ukraine, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and for using the information it did get to defend the previous administration’s policies.
Ratcliffe indicated during his confirmation hearing last week that substantial changes would be in store, saying the spy agency would be more aggressive both in collecting human intelligence and in countering U.S. adversaries.
“We will collect intelligence, especially human intelligence, in every corner of the globe no matter how dark or difficult,” he told lawmakers at the time. "We will conduct covert actions at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.
"To the brave CIA officers listening around the world, if all of this sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up and get ready to make a difference," Ratcliffe added. “If it doesn't, then it's time to find a new line of work.”
The confirmation vote came three days after Trump took the oath of office and after a plea from the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee for a speedy vote on Ratcliffe’s nomination to lead the CIA.
"Our world is far too dangerous for any delay in having a Senate-confirmed leader in charge of the CIA," Senators Tom Cotton and Mark Warner said in a statement Monday, after their committee advanced Ratcliffe by a 14-3 margin.
Push from Thune
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, on Tuesday also pushed for his colleagues to move quickly on Ratcliffe’s nomination.
“Under the Biden administration, the intelligence community made some notable misses,” Thune said. “Mr. Ratcliffe brings the right experience and the right approach to the CIA,” he said.
Cotton, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, also praised Ratcliffe as someone capable of getting the CIA back on track.
"The nation needs a strong, capable and aggressive CIA,” he told Ratcliffe at his confirmation hearing last week. “I believe the men and women you will lead want to serve in just that kind of agency. They joined the CIA, after all, not a church choir or a therapy session.”
But the confirmation vote was delayed after criticism from some leading Democrats.
“I want the record to show that I strongly oppose the nomination,” Democrat Ron Wyden said Tuesday.
“In 2020, I opposed his confirmation to be director of national intelligence because I believe his partisanship and willingness essentially went to the proposition of doing what would please Donald Trump,” he said. “Unfortunately, his actions as head of national intelligence only confirmed my concerns.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer echoed that opposition before Thursday’s vote.
“I will respectfully vote no, not because of our political difference, which of course exists, but because I am deeply worried that Mr. Ratcliffe will be unable to stand up to people like Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard, who are known to falsify intelligence,” he said.
“There may be no agency more important than the CIA that has to be fact-based. Sometimes, these facts will lead to inconvenient conclusions for his superiors and the president,” he said. “It’s in those cases where truth, not fiction, not ideology, must prevail, and I have my doubts that Mr. Ratcliffe will be able to hold firm.”
Gabbard hearing scheduled
Gabbard, a veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard and a former Democratic lawmaker, is Trump’s choice to be the next director of national intelligence.
Her confirmation hearing has been scheduled for next week, when she will be asked about accusations from both Democrats and some Republicans that she has repeated Russian disinformation and about her 2017 meeting with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who stands accused of war crimes.
Ratcliffe’s opponents have accused him of defying Congress and withholding information in the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi – a killing that U.S. intelligence concluded was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
They also have criticized Ratcliffe, in his role as director of national intelligence, for the September 2020 release of a Russian intelligence assessment that seemed to back Trump’s allegations of nefarious activity by his opponent in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
But that decision, and others by Ratcliffe to push back against previous U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia had endeavored to help Trump win the 2016 election, is part of what endeared him to the president.
And Ratcliffe’s insistence on a more aggressive CIA, according to some analysts, resonated with both Republicans and Democrats.
“There was criticism throughout the hearing that the CIA has gone soft on collecting human intelligence, on stealing foreign adversary secrets,” Tyler McBrien, the managing editor of Lawfare, told VOA. “A lot of criticisms about how the CIA has failed to predict in the past four years major geopolitical events, including the fall of the Assad regime and even the New Orleans terrorist attack.”
“Ratcliffe really is focused on that human intelligence aspect and also a reorientation toward what he sees as the biggest national security threat, which is China,” McBrien said.
No-bias pledge
Ratcliffe has promised lawmakers that under his leadership the CIA will deliver insights free of political bias and that he will not lead a purge of employees based on their perceived political views or perceived loyalty to Trump.
He also promised to reinvigorate CIA investigations into the cause of Havana Syndrome — the name given to a series of brain injuries and other serious health ailments that have struck hundreds of U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials.
And he voiced support for maintaining controversial U.S. surveillance authorities under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, calling it an indispensable tool.
Katherine Gypson and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
