President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for advisors so far have leaned hard to the right, and that includes Mike Pompeo, Trump’s choice to lead the CIA.
Pompeo, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, was first elected to Congress from his Wichita, Kansas, district in the great tea party wave of 2010. Here are some interesting facts about 52-year-old Mike Pompeo:
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- Pompeo attended West Point and graduated first in his class in 1986.
- After serving his time in the army, he received a law degree from Harvard, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review.
- Pompeo wants to resume bulk collection of domestic phone metadata — the numbers and time stamps of calls, but not the content — which has been deemed illegal by two governmental panels.
- He’s called for the death penalty for Edward Snowden, the founder of WikiLeaks, who disclosed the NSA’s top-secret surveillance program.
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- Pompeo is opposed to closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.
- He has attacked Hillary Clinton relentlessly, accusing her of “criminality” over her use of a private server and email system while she was secretary of state.
- Perhaps most controversial, Pompeo wants to reinstate “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including the waterboarding of prisoners. John Brennan, the current CIA director, and Arizona Senator John McCain have strongly rebuffed the use of this torture.
- While the CIA and Defense Department see climate change as a threat to national security, Pompeo opposes the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
- Pompeo opposes the Iran deal and has called for regime change in that country.
