Trump Picks John Ratcliffe, His Former Intelligence Director, for C.I.A. Chief

Trump Picks John Ratcliffe, His Former Intelligence Director, for C.I.A. Chief

Mr. Ratcliffe, who was also a Texas congressman, fought fiercely for Donald Trump during his first term.

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By Michael D. Shear and Julian E. Barnes

Reporting from Washington

President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Tuesday that his nominee to lead the C.I.A. would be John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served as the director of national intelligence during Mr. Trump’s first term.

Mr. Trump called Mr. Ratcliffe a “warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public” on his social media account. As the national intelligence director, Mr. Ratcliffe served as the president’s chief adviser on intelligence issues.

As a congressman, Mr. Ratcliffe fought on Mr. Trump’s behalf, helping to pursue investigations into Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and repeatedly criticizing the investigations into ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Mr. Ratcliffe’s selection adds to the string of fierce Trump loyalists chosen so far for senior positions in the president-elect’s administration. But while Mr. Ratcliffe firmly backed Mr. Trump’s agenda as the director of national intelligence, he did not accede to every demand Mr. Trump made, something that could aid him as the Senate debates his confirmation.

His confirmation would most likely make Mr. Ratcliffe the most influential voice on intelligence matters in the next administration. Nominally, the C.I.A. director is subordinate to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But the C.I.A. director, with the power to appoint the senior spies stationed overseas and to conduct covert operations, arguably has more influence, and Mr. Trump has long viewed the C.I.A. job as more important.

Some lawmakers on Tuesday quickly praised the nomination, including Representative Mike Turner, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a Republican from Ohio.

As C.I.A. director, Mr. Ratcliffe will help “counter the serious threats posed by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea,” Mr. Turner said.

When Mr. Ratcliffe was nominated to be the director of national intelligence in Mr. Trump’s first term, senators were initially hesitant to confirm him, seeing him as too partisan for the job, and he withdrew his nomination when it was initially offered.

Mr. Trump appointed Richard Grenell, who was the president’s combative ambassador to Germany and had little experience in collecting intelligence, as the acting director. A few months later, when Mr. Trump again floated the idea of Mr. Ratcliffe’s nomination, he was seen by senators as a more palatable choice.

As director of national intelligence, Mr. Ratcliffe warned about Chinese efforts to undermine Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, but he and his subordinates also did not shy away from saying Russia was trying to denigrate Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump’s 2020 challenger. Mr. Ratcliffe also exposed an Iranian plot to try to influence voters in Florida, which later led to indictments during the Biden administration.

Mr. Ratcliffe was deeply critical of how spy agencies looked at China. He argued that analysts had one standard for judging Russian influence operations and another for evaluating Chinese influence.

The Biden administration generally saw Iran and Russia as greater threats to conduct influence operations, but officials also said Mr. Ratcliffe had raised legitimate concerns. Officials in the current administration said they have worked to develop a single standard for evaluating influence operations.

As the director of national intelligence, Mr. Ratcliffe undertook some actions that critics saw as partisan.

At the end of his first administration, Mr. Trump and key aides sought to declassify information that they believed undermined Democratic views about Russian influence operations in the 2016 election. Mr. Ratcliffe, over the objections of the C.I.A., declassified some of the material that had been requested by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. (The material involved the Russians’ analysis of what they thought Hillary Clinton was planning to do in the 2016 election.)

Mr. Ratcliffe also declassified material sought by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and others, about calls made by the retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, before he became Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser.

But he also showed that he had limits. Some allies of Mr. Trump wanted Mr. Ratcliffe to release sensitive material gathered from intelligence files by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. The C.I.A. opposed the release. Mr. Ratcliffe reviewed the material and ultimately sided with the agency.