WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate is expected to hold a confirmation vote on Tuesday on John Ratcliffe, President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA Director, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said.
“In his confirmation hearing, Mr. Ratcliffe promised to return to the CIA’s core mission. That means recruiting spies to collect intelligence and providing objective intelligence analysis without bias. Mr. Ratcliffe brings the right experience and the right approach to the CIA, and I look forward to working with him in this position,” Thune said in a floor speech.
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first presidential term, has support from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers and could be the second nominee to be confirmed after Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday.
Some Democrats opposed him, expressing concern that Trump’s rocky relationship with the U.S. intelligence community could lead to the agency’s politicization.
At a confirmation hearing last week, Ratcliffe vowed not to fire or force out employees of the premier U.S. intelligence agency over their political views or their opinions.
The timing of a confirmation vote for Ratcliffe remained unclear.
(Reporting by David Morgan; writing by Katharine Jackson; Editing by David Gregorio)
