WASHINGTON – A Senate panel is considering Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe’s nomination for director of national intelligence, holding the in-person hearing amid President Donald Trump’s shakeup of the intelligence community and under drastic new distancing rules to protect Capitol Hill from the coronavirus.
Ratcliffe’s confirmation hearing in the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday comes nine months after Trump first submitted and then abruptly withdrew the three-term lawmaker’s nomination.
The August withdrawal came after bipartisan Senate criticism that Ratcliffe, one of the president’s most ardent defenders during the Russia investigations and Trump's impeachment, was unqualified to oversee 17 U.S.