Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist without intelligence experience nominated by the U.S. president to become the nation’s top intelligence chief, faced a deeply divided panel of U.S. senators on Tuesday. Over the course of his Senate confirmation hearing, Democratic lawmakers questioned his fitness for the post in the wake of his fiery support for President Donald Trump during the impeachment trial and the president’s own chronic misrepresentation of facts that has put him at odds with the U.S. intelligence community in the past.

John Ratcliffe, the Texas congressman whose bid to be director of national intelligence fell apart last summer amid evidence he exaggerated his biography, promised the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday that if confirmed he would “speak truth to power” and protect spy agencies from political pressure.

The first hearing set to take place after the Senate returned from a coronavirus-induced hiatus is the Senate Intelligence Committee's confirmation hearing for Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, President Trump's nominee for the director of national intelligence position.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) will at last get his confirmation hearing to be President Trump’s next director of national intelligence — a moment delayed for weeks by a coronavirus pandemic that shut down much of the country.

Ratcliffe is expected to be grilled by members of both parties on the Senate Intelligence Committee over whether he will be an independent voice for intelligence.

Critics say Trump is seeking to install a loyalist with Ratcliffe.

The Senate intelligence committee has convened an extraordinary hearing on Tuesday morning at which members are set to consider the nomination of Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to become the director of national intelligence.

The session not only is expected to intersect with a number of white-hot political storylines in Washington but also make history simply for taking place amid continued social distancing and other mitigation measures aimed at containing the coronavirus.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he had dropped his choice for spy chief, Representative John Ratcliffe, after questions about the congressman’s lack of experience and possible exaggerations in his resume.

WASHINGTON — Even by the standards of President Trump’s administration, Rep. John Ratcliffe’s troubled nomination to run America’s intelligence services died quickly.

Trump announced Ratcliffe’s withdrawal by presidential tweet on Friday, less than a week after the Texas congressman was put forward to become the new Director of National Intelligence. From the jump, Ratcliffe was dogged by accusations that he'd padded his resume with boasts of terrorist prosecutions that never happened.

President Trump announced Friday afternoon Congressman John Ratcliffe's nomination to be the next Director of National Intelligence has been withdrawn.
Ratcliffe was nominated earlier this week when it was announced former DNI Director Dan Coates would be stepping down.
After Ratcliffe was nominated, the media jumped to falsely condemn him as soft on Russia due to this exchange with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

President Trump’s choice to lead the nation’s intelligence community often cites a massive roundup of immigrant workers at poultry plants in 2008 as a highlight of his career. Rep. John Ratcliffe claims that as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Texas, he was the leader of the immigration crackdown, describing it as one of the largest cases of its kind.

“As a U.S. Attorney, I arrested over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day,” Rat­cliffe (R-Tex.) says on his congressional website.

Rep. John Ratcliffe is President Trump's choice to become the next top leader of the U.S. intelligence community.

The Texas Republican thanked Trump on Twitter following the president's earlier announcement, also on Twitter, that Ratcliffe was his nominee to replace outgoing Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Coats and Trump haven't been sympatico from the beginning and the White House has been telling journalists for weeks that the president wanted somebody else.