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Former Texas congressman picked to be CIA director

For U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe speaks during an interview at KETR at Texas A&M University – Commerce.
Texas A&M University-Commerce Marketing Communications Photography, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
For U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe speaks during an interview at KETR at Texas A&M University – Commerce.

A former U.S. Representative from Texas is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s intelligence agency. John Ratcliffe, who previously represented the 4th congressional district from 2015 to 2020, was tapped this week to be CIA director for the upcoming administration.

“He’s probably one of the least controversial nominees this time around,” said James Barragán, politics reporter for the Texas Tribune.

While some of Trump’s picks for roles within his administration have faced scrutiny, Ratcliffe appears to have bipartisan support – at least this time around.

“He previously was nominated to be director of national intelligence in 2020 and had a pretty difficult, contentious hearing,” Barragán said. “He was confirmed 49 to 44 with no Democratic support back then. But this time around, he’s saying all the right things, all the things that Democrats – and, frankly, if you’re nonpartisan – want to hear.

Trump cannot formally nominate Ratcliffe until he takes office. Then the Senate intelligence committee will vote on sending Ratcliffe’s nomination to the full Senate for a vote.

“He’s saying he wants to keep the CIA independent, (that) he would protect it from meddling by the White House, and he wants to focus on intelligence gathering to protect the U.S.,” Barragán said. “So it’s very different from that 2020 hearing. He even got some kudos from Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, saying he has an obvious appreciation for the work done by our intelligence community.”

Hear more stories from the week in Texas politics in the audio player above.