04.24.18

‘Mike Pompeo Is Up To The Task’

‘Yesterday, the Foreign Relations Committee finished consideration of Mike Pompeo’s nomination to serve as our nation’s 70th Secretary of State. They reported his nomination to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation. Later this week, we’ll take their advice, and vote to confirm him. We’ll be lucky to have this capable public servant on the job.’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the nomination of Mike Pompeo to serve as U.S. Secretary of State:

“Yesterday, the Foreign Relations Committee finished consideration of Mike Pompeo’s nomination to serve as our nation’s 70th Secretary of State. They reported his nomination to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation. Later this week, we’ll take their advice, and vote to confirm him. We’ll be lucky to have this capable public servant on the job.

“We know Mike Pompeo is up to the task. After all, we confirmed him -- with a comfortable and bipartisan majority -- to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. In one of the most sensitive positions in our government, the quality of his leadership was directly linked to the security of the American people.

“West Point valedictorian. Harvard Law. U.S. Army officer. A successful businessman and three-term Congressman, serving on the House Intelligence Committee. This is the resume that Mike Pompeo brought to the top job at the CIA with the support of a bipartisan supermajority of the Senate. And by all accounts, his tenure there has been a big success.

“The caliber of Mike’s leadership and the quality of his counsel have won him the respect of our national clandestine service and the confidence of the president. Just recently, Director Pompeo undertook sensitive conversations with representatives of North Korea to lay the groundwork for efforts aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

“As he steps into his new mission as Secretary of State, he clearly enjoys the confidence of the president. And throughout his testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, he demonstrated expertise and professionalism.

“Fortunately, even as so many of President Trump’s well-qualified nominations are obstructed and delayed without reason, a bipartisan majority of senators have already signaled their intention to vote to confirm Mike Pompeo. We have the nominee. We have the votes. And we will confirm our next Secretary of State this week. Then, I hope we can build on this bipartisan momentum and process more of the president’s qualified nominees.”

Related Issues: National Security, Nominations