Trump picks
conservative loyalists for attorney general, CIA
U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump picked three conservative loyalists with hard-line
views on immigration and counter-terrorism to lead his national security and
law
enforcement teams, including U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney
general and Representative Mike Pompeo as CIA director.
Retired
Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, who has been a stalwart in supporting Trump's
promises to take a tougher approach to militant Islamist groups, was picked as
his national security adviser.
The three
choices, announced in a statement on Friday by Trump's transition team, come as
the Republican president-elect works to fill key positions in his
administration, which will take over from Democratic President Barack Obama on
Jan. 20. All three men said they have accepted Trump's offer.
In choosing
Sessions as head of the Justice Department and the country's chief law
enforcement officer, Trump rewarded a loyalist whose tough and sometimes
inflammatory statements on immigration have been similar to his own.
One of the earliest
Republican lawmakers to support Trump's White House candidacy, Sessions opposes
any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and was an enthusiastic backer
of Trump's campaign promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico. He has
also argued for curbs on legal immigration on the grounds that it drives down
wages for U.S. workers.
A former
Alabama attorney general and U.S. attorney, Sessions, 69, could face a tough
confirmation battle in the Senate, despite his 19-year tenure there.
Allegations that he made racist remarks led the Senate to deny his confirmation
as a federal judge in 1986.
However, he
could be helped as his status as one of Trump's most enthusiastic backers on
Capitol Hill. Trump has hired several of Sessions' staffers, including policy
chief Stephen Miller and Rick Dearborn, who has a top job managing the
transition.
"Jeff
is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows
him," Trump said in a statement.
Flynn, a
retired U.S. Army three-star general and one of Trump's closest advisers, was
fired from the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, a move he has attributed to
his outspoken views about combating Islamist militancy. Other officials who
worked with Flynn cited his lack of management skills and leadership style as
reasons for his firing.
An Army
intelligence veteran of three decades, Flynn was assistant director of national
intelligence under Obama.
Pompeo, 52,
a third-term Republican congressman from Kansas, was a surprise pick to lead
the Central Intelligence Agency.
He was a
member of a congressional committee that investigated a 2012 attack on U.S.
diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and
three other Americans. Pompeo argued that the Obama administration was more concerned
with protecting the reputation of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton than
with finding out what happened.
Pompeo, a
member of the House Intelligence Committee, is a former U.S. Army officer who
founded an aerospace company in Wichita, Kansas. During his first run for
Congress in 2010, opponents charged him with outsourcing American jobs because
his company opened a factory in Mexico. Pompeo said the move helped his
business to add jobs in the United States.
Like
Sessions, Pompeo will need to be confirmed in the job by a majority vote in the
Senate. Republicans will hold at least a 51-seat majority when the chamber
convenes in January.
Reuters
Follow Solenzo Blog on
0 Comments