http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/306714-trump-picks-gop-rep-as-cia-chief-reportTrump picks Rep. Pompeo as CIA chief
By Mark Hensch and Julian Hattem - 11/18/16 08:20 AM EST
President-elect Donald Trump has selected Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) to lead the CIA, a Trump transition source told The Hill on Friday morning.
Pompeo accepted the offer to replace current CIA director John Brennan. It came moments after reports emerged that Trump tapped Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to be his attorney general.
Sessions, who has represented Alabama in the Senate for nearly 20 years, was the first senator to back Trump for president.
Reports also emerged late Thursday that Trump offered retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn a role as his national security advisor.
Flynn held a number of military roles throughout his career, serving as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and chair of the Military Intelligence Board.
Reuters first reported the selection on Pompeo on Friday morning.
The position is a boost to Pompeo, who is considered a serious if rather hawkish member of the Republican national security establishment and has distinguished himself as a striver since coming to Congress with little political experience in 2010.
In being nominated to lead the CIA, the House lawmaker appears to have leapfrogged his chairman on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who was one of several named being floated for the post this week.
After graduating first in his class from West Point, Pompeo served as a Cavalry Officer before heading to Harvard Law School, where he overlapped with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
After winning an open seat in Kansas, Pompeo made it a priority to join the Intelligence Committee, where he now sits. He was a member of the Select Committee on Benghazi and helps to lead a task force that earlier this year confirmed allegations that intelligence about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) had been manipulated by senior officials at the military’s Central Command.
In recent years, Pompeo has made his name as a particularly vocal critic of the Obama administration’s policy on Iran and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s actions during the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Along with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Pompeo tried to shed light on secret “side deals” between Iran and United Nations inspectors. He also tried unsuccessfully to visit Iran earlier this year, to observe the country’s elections.
On the Benghazi committee, Pompeo went above and beyond the panel’s conclusions to say that Clinton acted “morally reprehensible.”
This summer, he ruled out launching a primary challenge against Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) after initially contemplating a jump to the upper chamber. The episode was viewed as further evidence that Pompeo had grander designs than the House.
Trump and his team have pushed back on reports that he's having trouble getting his White House transition set up. Trump insisted in a tweet this week that a "very organized process [is] taking place."
Brennan, who Pompeo would replace, was a frequent critic of Trump during the campaign. In September, he rejected Trump’s claim that intelligence officials were unhappy with President Obama.
And in July, he seemingly suggested he would step down if Trump followed through on his push to bring back enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding.
