# John Ratcliffe Director of the Central Intelligence Agency since January 23, 2025. Previously Director of National Intelligence (2020–2021). The **first person to serve as both DNI and CIA Director**. Former U.S. Representative for Texas's 4th district (2015–2020) and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. ## DNI tenure (2020–2021) Trump nominated Ratcliffe for DNI in 2019; the nomination was withdrawn after questions arose about his counterterrorism résumé claims. Re-nominated and confirmed in May 2020 on a near-party-line vote (49–44). As DNI, declassified materials related to the Russia investigation and the [[Mueller Investigation]] in ways that shaped the late-2020 information environment around the Trump-Russia narrative. Stepped down January 20, 2021, with the change of administrations. ## CIA Director (2025–present) Trump nominated Ratcliffe for CIA Director shortly after the November 2024 election; confirmed by the Senate January 23, 2025. The DNI-then-CIA sequence is unprecedented and reflects the second-term administration's loyalty-first staffing pattern across the intelligence community. ## Signalgate Ratcliffe was a member of the "Houthi PC small group" Signal chat in March 2025 ([[Pete Hegseth - Signalgate strike timing]]). The Pentagon IG (December 2025) found the strike-timing information shared in the chat was classified at time of transmission. As CIA Director, Ratcliffe's presence in the chat without raising operational-security objections — alongside DNI [[Tulsi Gabbard]] — represents an institutional failure across the IC's two senior-most positions. ## Related - [[Pete Hegseth - Signalgate strike timing]] - [[Tulsi Gabbard]] - [[Mueller Investigation]]