By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2025-01-23 20:11:21 | Updated at 2025-01-23 23:22:38
3 hours ago
The US Senate confirmed China hawk John Ratcliffe as the next director of the CIA on Thursday after Democrats had stalled his final floor vote — further setting back the timeline for consideration of President Trump’s other cabinet officials.
Ratcliffe, who formerly served as director of national intelligence and whose nomination had overwhelmingly cleared a vote in committee, was approved, 74-25, as the agency’s spy chief by all Republicans and many Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune had called out Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy for delaying the vote on a “key national security position.”
“The Intelligence Committee favorably reported Mr. Ratcliffe’s nomination on a bipartisan vote: 14 to 3,” Thune (R-SD) noted in a Wednesday speech, accusing Murphy of needlessly calling for floor debate to which only one Democrat showed up.
“In a joint statement with Chairman (Tom) Cotton, the Democrat vice chair of the Intelligence Committee said this, and I quote, ‘Our world is far too dangerous for any delay in having a Senate-confirmed leader in charge of the CIA. We urge expeditious consideration of this important nomination,'” Thune said.
“Mr. Ratcliffe is a qualified nominee. He was director of national intelligence in the first Trump administration — the quarterback for all 18 elements of the intelligence community. … There has been plenty of time to review his record. It’s time to vote.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York revealed ahead of the vote that he was going to oppose confirmation “not because of our political difference” but “because I’m 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.”
Ratcliffe vowed a return to “apolitical” intelligence gathering at the CIA, hinting that rooting out “political or personal biases” among spooks could lead to some firings during his confirmation hearing last week.
“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,” he said in his opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“If it doesn’t, then it’s time to find a new line of work.”
The ideal recruit, he added, would be much like “a Ph.D. who could win a bar fight,” quoting a description from the CIA’s World War II predecessor, the OSS.
“If you have a politically motivated, bureaucratically imposed social justice agenda that takes a part of your attention, that can distract from the core mission of collecting human intelligence that matters and providing it to you in a timely way,” Ratcliffe explained later in the Jan. 15 hearing.
The experienced spy boss also pledged to refocus intel activities on China as the “top national security threat” to the US.
“As DNI, I dramatically increased the Intelligence Community’s resources devoted to China,” he added. “I openly warned the American people that from my unique vantage point as the official who saw more intelligence than anyone else, I assessed that China was far and away our top national security threat.”
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray called China the “defining threat of our generation” in an interview earlier this month on CBS’ “60 Minutes” before his resignation.
The G-man also anticipated in his hearing that he would be meeting “the most challenging national security environment in our nation’s history,” with terror threats increasing over the southern border and accusations of political interference obscuring an intel probe of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins.
In an April 2023 congressional hearing, the former DNI head called a lab leak the “only” explanation for the explosion of SARS-CoV-2 out of Wuhan, China, resulting in the deaths of more than 1 million Americans.
The Senate is expected to run through other procedural votes on Thursday for nominees including Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth, whose confirmation has drawn the most scrutiny due to allegations of sexual impropriety, binge-drinking and financial mismanagement as a vet nonprofit leader.
