CIA director nominee John Ratcliffe has drawn objections over his role in declassifying intelligence that could have helped Donald Trump during the 2020 election, and for slow-walking the release of a report on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

What has gone overlooked as Ratcliffe speeds toward a Thursday confirmation vote, however, are his ties to the artificial intelligence industry that is angling to pick up billions of dollars in government contracts during the Trump presidency.

Ratcliffe’s financial disclosures reveal that in just a few short years since his tour of duty in the first Trump cabinet, he amassed thousands of shares in artificial intelligence companies by serving on their advisory boards. Those gigs were among a host of potential conflicts of interest that also included an oil and gas firm, venture capital companies, and a private equity firm.

Democrats have not made noise about Ratcliffe’s tour through the revolving door. One progressive critic said that may be explained by the fact that former intelligence community leaders under Democratic presidents have had similar résumés — but that shouldn’t mean Ratcliffe gets a free pass.

“It’s unfortunately bog-standard corruption, which is part of why his nomination is so uncontroversial,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project. “It’s not right, but it is standard.”

As is customary for government officials, Ratcliffe has vowed to avoid “any actual or apparent conflict of interest,” by selling stocks and recusing himself from any matter in which he had a personal stake. For Hauser, however, that does not erase the risk that his ties to the industry will affect his judgment on a technology that many critics say has yet to prove its usefulness.

Ratcliffe and the Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment.

A Gig Machine

Ratcliffe was a former Justice Department prosecutor and small-town mayor when he ran to represent a congressional district outside Dallas in 2014, besting a 91-year-old World War II veteran as a tea party challenger in their primary.

Trump first tried to tap him as director of national intelligence in 2019, calling off the........

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