1. John Lee Ratcliffe was born on October 20,1965 and is an American politician and attorney who has served as the ninth director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2025.
57 Facts About John Ratcliffe
1. 2.
John Ratcliffe previously served as the sixth director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 and served in the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2020.
3.
John Ratcliffe served as mayor of Heath, Texas, from 2004 to 2012 and acting United States attorney for the Eastern District of Texas from May 2007 to April 2008.
4.
John Ratcliffe was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2014, representing Texas's 4th district until 2020.
5.
President Donald Trump announced on July 28,2019, that he intended to nominate John Ratcliffe to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence.
6.
John Ratcliffe withdrew after Republican senators raised concerns about him, former intelligence officials said he might politicize intelligence, and media revealed John Ratcliffe's embellishments regarding his prosecutorial experience in terrorism and immigration cases.
7.
On February 28,2020, Trump announced that he would again nominate John Ratcliffe to be director of national intelligence, and after Senate approval, he resigned from the House, and was sworn in on May 26.
8.
On November 12,2024, president-elect Trump announced that he would nominate John Ratcliffe to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
9.
John Ratcliffe graduated from Carbondale Community High School in Carbondale, Illinois; from the University of Notre Dame in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in government and international studies; and the Southern Methodist University School of Law with a Juris Doctor in 1989.
10.
John Ratcliffe served in that position from June 2004 to May 2012.
11.
In 2004, president George W Bush appointed Ratcliffe to be the chief of anti-terrorism and national security for the Eastern District of Texas, within the US Department of Justice.
12.
In May 2007, John Ratcliffe was named interim US attorney for the district.
13.
John Ratcliffe returned to private law practice when Rebecca Gregory was confirmed by the Senate as the permanent US attorney for the district in April 2008.
14.
The Washington Post noted in a story about how John Ratcliffe embellished his record that John Ratcliffe played a supporting role in an effort to bust illegal immigrants and that his office arrested only 45 individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants.
15.
In 2012, John Ratcliffe was part of a transition team, established before that year's general election by Republican candidate Mitt Romney, to vet potential Presidential appointees.
16.
In late 2013, John Ratcliffe announced that he would run in the Republican primary against 17-term incumbent congressman Ralph Hall of the 4th district.
17.
John Ratcliffe defeated Hall with 53 percent of the vote, the first time in twenty years that a sitting Republican congressman in Texas had been ousted in a primary.
18.
John Ratcliffe was one of four candidates to defeat a sitting incumbent US representative in a primary election in 2014.
19.
On March 1,2016, John Ratcliffe easily defeated two challengers in the Republican primary, getting 68 percent of the vote, 47 percentage points ahead of the second-place finisher.
20.
On November 6,2018, John Ratcliffe won re-election to a third term with nearly 76 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic challenger Catherine Krantz and Libertarian challenger Ken Ashby.
21.
When John Ratcliffe took office on January 3,2015, he became only the fifth person to represent the 4th District since its creation in 1903.
22.
John Ratcliffe subsequently suggested that the FBI had "predetermined the result" of the investigation.
23.
In late 2018, John Ratcliffe was reportedly considered for the role of attorney general by the Trump Administration.
24.
John Ratcliffe was tapped for the position based on his legal background and effectiveness during impeachment proceedings in the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees.
25.
President Donald Trump announced on July 28,2019, that he intended to nominate John Ratcliffe to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence.
26.
Trump expressed confidence John Ratcliffe could "rein in" intelligence agencies which he asserted had "run amok".
27.
John Ratcliffe has little experience in national security or national intelligence and is reported to have demonstrated little engagement on the matters as a congressman.
28.
Trump's intent to nominate John Ratcliffe became controversial when he was found to have lied about his role in prosecuting terrorism and immigration cases.
29.
John Ratcliffe criticized the FBI and the special counsel investigation as biased against Trump.
30.
John Ratcliffe alleged that Russian interference may have helped Trump's 2016 rival candidate Hillary Clinton more than Trump.
31.
Later, John Ratcliffe claimed on Fox News that the special counsel investigation's report was not written by special counsel Robert Mueller, but by "Hillary Clinton's de facto legal team".
32.
Several former members of the intelligence community expressed concerns that John Ratcliffe's appointment risked politicizing intelligence work.
33.
On February 28,2020, president Donald Trump publicly announced John Ratcliffe to be his nominee for director of national intelligence.
34.
US senator John Cornyn introduced Ratcliffe and supported his nomination.
35.
John Ratcliffe was confirmed by the Senate on May 21,2020, by a vote of 49 to 44.
36.
John Ratcliffe made public assertions that contradicted the intelligence community's own assessments, and sidelined career officials in the intelligence community.
37.
Thirty-five days before the November 2020 election, John Ratcliffe declassified 2016 Russian disinformation that asserted Hillary Clinton had personally approved a scheme to associate Trump with Vladimir Putin and Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee.
38.
John Ratcliffe provided the disinformation to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham, who publicly released it.
39.
John Ratcliffe is a contributor to Project 2025, and was interviewed for the project, excerpts of the interview being a part of a chapter on the intelligence community.
40.
John Ratcliffe served as Co-Chair for the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute from April 2021 until December 2024.
41.
In May and September of 2024 John Ratcliffe was a Special Guest Speaker for Trump Vance Campaign fundraising events.
42.
In November 2024, John Ratcliffe was nominated by Trump to serve as the next director of the CIA.
43.
John Ratcliffe appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on January 15,2025.
44.
John Ratcliffe was sworn in by Vice President JD Vance on January 23,2025.
45.
John Ratcliffe was considered one of the most conservative members of Congress.
46.
John Ratcliffe has repeatedly warned that China is the top threat to US and global interests.
47.
When he first ran for Congress, John Ratcliffe said that term limits were a central part of his platform.
48.
John Ratcliffe was chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection during the 115th Congress, when Republicans controlled the House.
49.
In March 2014, John Ratcliffe oversaw a congressional hearing, "The Current State of DHS Private Sector Engagement for Cybersecurity", that studied ways to get the private sector and the Department of Homeland Security to better cooperate to prevent terrorist activity.
50.
John Ratcliffe secured testimony from various organizations: the Hitrust Alliance, Intel Security Group, Symantec, Palo Alto Networks, and New America's Open Technology Institute.
51.
In December 2017, John Ratcliffe signed a letter from Congress, along with 106 other members of Congress, to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, supporting Pai's plan to repeal net neutrality.
52.
John Ratcliffe has described court-approved surveillance of the Trump campaign as spying.
53.
Days before he was announced as Trump's choice to be Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe drew headlines for his questioning of Robert Mueller during Mueller's congressional testimony.
54.
John Ratcliffe criticized Mueller for describing instances of obstruction of justice in his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
55.
John Ratcliffe claimed that Mueller went beyond the rules for special counsels, by covering instances of potential obstruction when the report did not charge any crimes.
56.
John Ratcliffe falsely claimed that the Steele dossier, which he described as a "fake, phony dossier", was the trigger that started the Trump-Russia probe.
57.
Shortly before Trump announced he would be nominated as DNI, John Ratcliffe asserted the Obama administration had committed a felony by leaking classified transcripts of 2016 phone calls between Michael Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to The Washington Post.