be expected to tell him only what he wants to hear. They stressed the need for intelligence to be "candid, truthful and accurate even if it is unpleasant and does not confirm to the biases of the president". On August 2, 2019, Trump said in a tweet that he was withdrawing Ratcliffe's name from nomination, claiming that mainstream media scrutiny of Ratcliffe (though using the "lamestream" pejorative in the actual message) was unfair, and would result in "months of slander and libel," while White House sources said that Trump had become concerned about Ratcliffe's chances for confirmation, following feedback from some Republican senators. Speaking to reporters later that day, Trump insisted the press had treated Ratcliffe unfairly, but he also stated that he liked the way the press vetted his nominees, saying "You vet for me." In his formal statement withdrawing from consideration, Ratcliffe said, "I do not wish for a national security and intelligence debate surrounding my confirmation, however untrue, to become a purely political and partisan issue. The country we all love deserves that it be treated as an American issue. Accordingly, I have asked the President to nominate someone other than me for this position." On February 28, 2020, President Donald Trump publicly announced Ratcliffe to be his nominee for Director of National Intelligence. On February 29, 2020, Sen. Mark Warner, vicechair of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned Trump against re-nominating Ratcliffe. The nomination came to the U.S. Senate on March 3, 2020. The U.S. Select Senate Committee on Intelligence held hearings on May 5, 2020, which started with a letter from former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in favor of the nomination. U.S. Senator John Cornyn introduced Ratcliffe and supported his nomination. The Committee later voted in favor of the nomination on May 19, 2020. Ratcliffe was confirmed by the Senate on May 21, 2020, by a vote of 49 to 44. He was sworn in on May 26. 2020 U.S. presidential election Thirty-five days before the November 2020 election, Ratcliffe declassifed 2016 Russian disinformation that asserted Hillary Clinton had personally approved a scheme to associate Trump with Vladimir Putin and Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Ratcliffe provided the disinformation to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who publicly released it. The allegation had been previously rejected as baseless by the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee. Ratcliffe acknowledged in a letter to Graham that the