The vote comes amid escalating feuding between Democrats and the White House about intelligence agencies’ role in the investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The Senate on Thursday confirmed Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) as President Donald Trump’s top intelligence official, in a move aimed at ending nine months of reshuffling at the top of the nation’s spying establishment.
Lawmakers voted 49-44 in aparty-line vote to confirm Ratcliffe as the sixth director of national intelligence since the office was created in the wake of the Sept.11,2001, terrorist attacks. The split was a contrast to the 85-12 vote in 2017 that had confirmed Ratcliffe’s predecessor, former Republican Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, and comes amid an escalating feud between Trump and Democrats over the political use of intelligence.
But Ratcliffe’s path to the intelligence post was still relatively smooth — this time around. Thursday’s vote came just two days after a divided Senate Intelligence Committee approved his nomination, and well before initial expectations for full chamber consideration sometime after Memorial Day.
