The U.S. Senate approved the appointment of Republican politician John Ratcliffe, a close friend of Donald Trump, to head the U.S. intelligence service on Thursday. John Ratcliffe's appointment was narrowly approved, 49 votes to 44, ten months after he was forced to give up the post of Director of Intelligence (DNI), who oversees and coordinates the activities of the CIA, the NSA and fifteen other intelligence agencies.
Donald Trump had indeed announced in early August his intention to promote him to this position. But this former mayor of a wealthy suburb of Dallas, and federal prosecutor for just one year, in 2007, had been criticized in particular by the Democratic opposition, because of his lack of experience and his devotion to the president. He had also been accused of exaggerating certain feats of arms and, even in the Republican ranks, enthusiasm had been measured.
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The Republican billionaire had finally given up on choosing Mr. John Ratcliffe, denouncing in passing "the very unfair way" he had been treated by the media. Following this failure, Donald Trump had instructed Joseph Maguire, then head of counterterrorism, to act in the interim after the departure on August 15 of the DNI Dan Coats, with whom he had frequently disagreed in particular on Russia or the North Korea. Joseph Maguire was slated to be confirmed for the job, but a briefing to Congress on further Russian interference in the 2020 campaign to promote Trump's re-election had sparked the President's anger at him.
On February 19, Donald Trump announced that he was temporarily replacing Joseph Maguire with Richard Grenell, then Ambassador of the United States to Berlin. But Grenell pushed several intelligence officials whose loyalty to Trump was deemed questionable to the exit and announced reorganizations without informing Congress beforehand, as he should have done. When the nomination of John Ratcliffe was presented a second time, some Republican elected officials therefore decided that it would be preferable to that of Richard Grenell.
John Ratcliffe pledged to "tell the truth" to Donald Trump during his hearing before Congress in early May and to present him with intelligence reports.