Senate panel schedules vote for Trump intel pick Ratcliffe for next week

The Senate Intelligence Committee will reportedly vote next week to confirm Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) as the next Director of National Intelligence.

The panel will vote to confirm Ratcliffe on Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing congressional sources. The Hill has reached out to the committee for comment.

President Trump formally nominated the Republican congressman in March. The vote to confirm him is expected to be along party lines in the GOP-led committee, Reuters reported.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who stepped down as the panel’s chairman this week amid an investigation into stock trades earlier this year, will vote to confirm Ratcliffe, sources told the wire service.

Ratcliffe has been in Congress since 2015 and is a member of both the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees.

Senators will weigh his nomination after Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Angus King (I-Maine) wrote Ratcliffe this week asking him to clarify his position on torture.

“In both your written and your oral responses to Committee questions about torture, you have been evasive and noncommittal,” the senators wrote.

They added: “Your opinion on what does and does not constitute torture is critical to understanding how you will advise the President on policy issues related to detainee treatment. The DNI also oversees all of the nation’s intelligence agencies, and is therefore in a position to determine appropriate limits on interrogation activities.”