Senators likely to press Pompeo about foreign policy
Secretary of state nominee will face Syria, tariff queries.
Mike Pompeo, the CIA director and secretary of state nominee, will be pressed to define the Trump administration’s foreign policy strategy during one of the most turbulent periods of international relations in the president’s tenure.
At his Senate confirmation hearing today, Pompeo is likely to be questioned about potential retaliation against Syria over an alleged chemical attack, the administration’s plans to impose tariffs on imports and a planned meeting with North Korea’s leader after months of heightened tensions over nuclear testing. Lawmakers also are likely to ask about deteriorating relations with Russia and whether the administration will pull out of the nuclear pact with Iran.
Senators want to know whether the White House is shifting strategies with President Donald Trump’s nomination of Pompeo and his appointment of John Bolton as national security adviser, both of whom share more hawkish views than their predecessors. Pompeo, 54, a former House member from Kansas, will also face questions on whether policy will be made in a deliberative process or based on the president’s impulses.
“A lot of us are worried about the combination of Pompeo and Bolton putting a set of military options on the table for the president,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters Tuesday. “It could do real damage to our national security.”
Democrats say Pompeo can expect a tough confirmation fight, even though he already went through the process to become CIA director with bipartisan support and will get more courtesy than a typical nominee because he’s a former congressman.
He’ll need bipartisan support to clear the panel, which Republicans govern with a narrow 11-10 majority. Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, a member of the committee, came out against Trump’s pick even before Trump formally nominated Pompeo.
Paul cited what he said is Pompeo’s past support for waterboarding and other forms of torture.
Without Democratic support, the administration could face an unprecedented scenario where a secretary of state nominee can’t clear committee, and Republican leaders would have to decide whether to take the matter straight to the Senate floor for a vote. With GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona absent for brain cancer treatments, Republicans have 50 votes compared with the Democrats’ 49.
Fifteen Senate Democrats backed Pompeo to be CIA chief, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and two Foreign Relations Committee members who will consider his nomination for secretary of state: Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Tim Kaine of Virginia.
At the hearing, lawmakers will seek to gauge Trump’s thinking on the 2015 Iran nuclear accord. Pompeo has spoken against the pact, while his predecessor, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, worked to keep Trump from abandoning it.
With Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster fired, few are left to argue Trump should still abide by the accord between Iran and six world powers.
On North Korea, Pompeo has hinted in the past that he supported regime change, again a contrast with Tillerson’s assurances that wasn’t a U.S. goal. That could sour relations with leader Kim Jong Un as Pompeo takes over preparations for a coming meeting between Kim and Trump.
Tillerson was criticized for his management of the State Department. A Washington outsider, he quickly gained a reputation for ignoring the advice of career diplomats and instead running decision-making through his chief of staff, Margaret Peterlin, and his policy planning chief, Brian Hook.
Pompeo already has sought advice on the job from past secretaries of state. That includes Hillary Clinton, whose leadership at the department he once called “morally reprehensible” over the 2012 deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in an attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. Clinton emphasized the need to retain career diplomats, according to a person familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified discussing a private call. Another person said Pompeo also spoke with John Kerry, Clinton’s successor.