The U.S. Senate approved John Ratcliffe's appointment as head of the CIA on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
Seventy-four senators voted in favor of the appointment, while twenty-five opposed it, and one senator did not participate in the vote.
With this, Ratcliffe became the second member of the new U.S. administration to gain Senate approval, following Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was confirmed earlier this week.
Ratcliffe was born in Mount Prospect, Illinois, on October 20, 1965, to a family of teachers. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1987, where he studied government and international studies, and in 1989, he earned his Juris Doctor degree from Southern Methodist University.
Until 2004, he practiced law in the private sector and then worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas, where he was appointed interim U.S. Attorney in 2007. Additionally, from 2004 to 2012, he served as the mayor of the small town of Heath, Texas. From 2015 to 2020, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and until 2021, he served as the Director of National Intelligence.
As reported, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to appoint former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.