Trump picks John Ratcliffe for CIA director role

On the heels of the announcement that Donald Trump plans to hand the role of Homeland Security lead over to South Dakota Governor and family dog annihilator Kristi Noem, he dropped another controversial nomination on Tuesday evening, tapping his former head of intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to lead the CIA.

In a statement posted to Truth Social, Trump sings Ratcliffe’s praises, writing, “From exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation, to catching the FBl’s abuse of Civil Liberties at the FISA Court, John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public. When 51 intelligence officials were lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop, there was one, John Ratcliffe, telling the truth to the American People.”

In 2019, Ratcliffe was the center of controversy and withdrew his name from consideration as Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s intelligence community over accusations that he padded his résumé, pivoting to accept the role months later and serve as the director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 during Trump’s first term. He currently serves as co-chair at the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-linked think tank, as described by CNN. 

Credited by Trump supporters on social media as “uncovering the Russian collusion hoax” and tracing it back to Hillary Clinton, in addition to being the “only intelligence dude to say Hunter’s laptop was real,” others outside of the MAGA-sphere are reminding of his prior statements on UFOs.

“John Ratcliffe was just on Fox News talking about UFO Disclosure,” writes one person in a post to X, sharing a clip from 2021. “Look at him smiling. Look [at] the clips playing in the background. He’s talking about Pleiadians and Galactic Federation.”