Donald Trump has chosen John Ratcliffe to serve as his CIA director, the president-elect announced in a statement Tuesday.

Ratcliffe had been high on the list of potential attorney general candidates, sources told CNN.

He is currently a co-chair at the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-linked think tank.

The Texas conservative served as the director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 During Trump’s first term – and his appointment served as a key argument for critics who believed that Trump was using the intelligence community to serve his political needs. During his tenure, Ratcliffe publicly released unverified information about Russia’s influence in the 2016 presidential election over the objection of members of the intelligence community. Critics claimed at the time that Ratcliffe was using intelligence to help Trump politically as the 2020 presidential election approached.

Ratcliffe stayed in his position during the 2020 election and presidential transition, during which he personally told Trump and his allies that there was no evidence of foreign election interference or widespread fraud. Years later, he was forced to testify about the experience to a federal grand jury as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal probe into the aftermath of the 2020 election.