Republicans and Democrats praised the former lawmaker and intelligence official, who vowed not to use political loyalty tests at the CIA.

Trump's former director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, is set to have his confirmation hearing as Trump's pick for director of the CIA on Wednesday.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill will question President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the CIA on his vision for America's premier spy agency

The U.S. Senate is expected to hold a confirmation vote on Tuesday on John Ratcliffe, President Donald Trump's nominee for CIA Director, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to confirm John Ratcliffe as the next CIA director, approving the second high-level appointment for the new Trump administration.

Former Congressman John Ratcliffe is the nation's new CIA director after the Senate voted 74-25 in favor of his confirmation on Thursday.

Ratcliffe, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, sought to reassure senators that he would remain apolitical in his role as CIA director.

Former CIA Director John Ratcliffe sparked controversy after making a statement suggesting that COVID-19 may have originated in a lab in China. His remarks have ignited a wave of shock and debate across the U.

In a fresh analysis, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it believes that the Covid-19 virus ‘more likely’ leaked from a Chinese lab than transmitted by animals. The US intelligence agency has released the ’low confidence’ assessment under Trump-appointed CIA director John Ratcliffe,

The finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin, but the agency's assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has shifted its official stance on the origin of Covid-19 pandemic. CIA on January 25 said that the virus was "more likely" leaked from a Chinese lab than transmitted by animals.