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John Ratcliffe — who is Trump’s pick for CIA, and was director of national intelligence for the final months of Trump’s first term — will rail against the politicization of the intelligence community during his Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today, a transition source tells Axios.
- He’ll vow to eliminate political biases and “wokeness” in the agency’s workforce policies, and instead focus on “the mission.”
Driving the news: Ratcliffe will portray tech as both a target (Where’s China on hypersonics, quantum and AI?) and as a tool (How are analysts utilizing large language models and AI? How are spies beating ubiquitous technical surveillance?).
- Ratcliffe thinks the agency — with a complex matrix of tech-focused directorates, mission centers and positions — has struggled to keep pace with the rapid technological advancements in the private sector.
- He plans to accelerate efforts to coordinate with U.S. private-sector firms at the bleeding edge of technological advancement.
Ratcliffe will focus on China, as reported in a Wall Street Journal banger, “Trump’s CIA Pick Expected to Push for Bare-Knuckle Spycraft Against China.”