The US Senate on Monday confirmed US Representative Mike Pompeo as CIA director and advanced the nomination of Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state, taking key steps toward filling US President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
Pompeo was sworn in on Monday night.
“You are stepping up to lead the finest intelligence-gathering operation the world has ever seen,” US Vice President Mike Pence said during the nighttime swearing-in ceremony. “The men and women serving under your command give true meaning to the word courage.”
Photo: EPA
Pompeo, a Republican on the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, becomes only the third member of Trump’s Cabinet to take his post, as the president’s Republican Party has pushed hard to speed up confirmation of his nominees.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and US Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly were sworn in Friday last week.
The Republican-led Senate confirmed Pompeo, a 53-year-old US Army veteran, by a vote of 66 to 32, with significant support from Democrats.
“He will be an excellent CIA director,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, who tweeted his congratulations to his colleague.
While Pompeo faced some Democratic pushback, many in the opposition party acknowledged his keen understanding of intelligence issues, especially the cyberthreat facing the US.
Pompeo “has committed to following the law regarding torture [and] promised to provide objective analysis of Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement,” US Senator Dianne Feinstein said.
Republicans had hoped to confirm Pompeo on Friday, but Democrats balked, arguing that a CIA director has never been put in place on Inauguration Day.
The delay drew criticism from Trump spokesman Sean Spicer, who charged that Democrats, led by US Senator Chuck Schumer, were “playing politics with national security.”
Schumer voted in favor of Pompeo on Monday.
Meanwhile, a US Senate panel green-lighted Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil chairman and chief executive whose nomination has been a source of controversy in large part because of his lack of government or diplomatic experience.
The move cleared the way for a confirmation vote by the full chamber.
The vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was 11 to 10, along strict party lines, setting up a period of debate and subsequent vote on an as-yet-undetermined day in the Republican-controlled US Senate.
Tillerson received a major boost when US Senator Marco Rubio, one of three Republicans who had expressed doubts about him, announced he would support Tillerson for the post, despite serious reservations.
Rubio said he still had concerns about Tillerson’s positions on human rights, but he stressed that given the “uncertainty” about the direction of US foreign policy, “it would be against our national interests to have this confirmation unnecessarily delayed or embroiled in controversy.”
US senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the other Republicans who had expressed reservations about Tillerson’s past dealings with Russia, gave their blessing on Sunday.
Republicans hold 52 seats in the 100-seat US Senate. A simple majority is required for confirmation of Cabinet positions.
The committee’s Democrats voted in unison against Tillerson.
“I believe Mr Tillerson’s demonstrated business orientation ... could compromise his ability as secretary of state to forcefully promote the values and ideals that have defined our country, and our leading role in the world for more than 200 years,” US Senator Ben Cardin said in a statement.
Democrats have also blocked nomination votes by arguing that ethics reviews and other vetting of key nominees had been insufficient.
Former US president Barack Obama had seven nominees approved on his first day as president in 2009.
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News Sunday that despite the delays by Democrats, “we will be able to confirm the entire Cabinet.”
Republicans were also hoping to get Trump’s pick for US attorney general, US Senator Jeff Sessions, installed swiftly.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on Sessions yesterday, the same day that the Foreign Relations Committee was to vote on South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s nomination to be US ambassador to the UN.
Meanwhile, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee postponed a meeting that had been scheduled for yesterday to vote on the nominations of Ryan Zinke and Rick Perry to head the US departments of interior and energy.
No reason was given for the delay, although the Senate has a shortened workweek because of a Republican retreat in Philadelphia later this week.
Additional reporting by AP
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