Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to be Trump’s CIA director

Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo has accepted Donald Trump’s offer as CIA director in his new administration, according to a senior transition official.

Trump offered the CIA directorship to Pompeo and the job of attorney general to Sen, Jeff Sessions, according to a senior transition official with knowledge of the situation but who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. A formal announcement is expected later today.

Pompeo, a three-term Republican from Wichita, met this week with Trump, and given the lawmaker’s background on military and intelligence issues, it seemed likely that CIA director and Army secretary were two possibilities.

“He would be a great asset to the Trump administration,” said Kansas Republican Chairman Kelly Arnold.

Desiree Taliaferro, spokeswoman for the Kansas Office of the Secretary of State, said around 8 a.m. Friday that it’s unclear how Pompeo’s congressional seat would be filled.

Taliaferro said she plans to meet with election officials early Friday morning to plan how the state would move forward.

“It’s been a long time since this has happened,” she said.

Pompeo originally supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential bid. Like most of his Kansas colleagues, Pompeo backed Trump when it was clear the New York real-estate developer would become the Republican presidential nominee, though he did not do so enthusiastically.

But Pompeo was close to Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served with Pompeo in the House. Last month, Pompeo helped prepare Pence for the vice presidential debate with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

The most prominent Kansas elected official to endorse Trump early on was Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now a member of the Trump transition team. Kobach was said to be considered for attorney general.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and recently defeated Rep. Tim Huelskamp are reportedly both potential picks for agriculture secretary.

Pompeo’s background

Pompeo is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the most vocal critics of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

He’s a supporter of the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk data collection program and sought to restore the agency’s access to the data it had already collected under the Patriot Act from its inception through late last year.

He’s a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and of Harvard Law School. He’s also a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Pompeo, who grew up in the traditionally Republican enclave of Orange County, Calif., founded Thayer Aerospace, a company that made parts for commercial and military aircraft. After selling Thayer, he became president of Sentry International, a company that manufactures and sells equipment used in oil fields.

He was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and with backing from the Koch Industries political action committee. The Wichita-based conglomerate’s PAC is well known for its support of conservative candidates.

Though Pompeo is generally known for his opposition to Obama administration policies, he’s occasionally given heat to some fellow Republicans. Last year, his name was floated as a potential rival to Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to become House speaker.

Earlier this year, he briefly flirted with a primary challenge to Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran after Moran appeared to break with Senate Republicans on Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland.

Joe Romance, an associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University, said it makes sense for Pompeo to consider a job in the executive branch, given the way the stage is set from Kansas to Washington in the next several years.

“He’s ambitious,” Romance said. “Jerry Moran just got re-elected. Roberts is not up until 2020. So where do you need to move? And I don’t think Ryan’s going anywhere as speaker. So why not?”

Critic of Iran nuclear deal

Pompeo has sponsored numerous bills that would maintain or increase sanctions on Iran over its nuclear weapons program. He’s been a staunch opponent of the deal negotiated by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that eases sanctions in exchange for dismantling the nuclear weapons program.

In February, Pompeo and two of his Republican House colleagues unsuccessfully sought visas to monitor the country’s elections.

When Iran detained a group of American sailors earlier whose ship had wandered into its territorial waters earlier this year, Pompeo introduced a bill requiring the Obama administration to investigate whether Iran violated the Geneva Convention. It didn’t become law. The sailors were not harmed, and the Navy later concluded that the sailors had entered Iran’s waters by mistake.

Pompeo has served on the House Select Benghazi Committee.

The special panel was created in 2014 to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. One of its key targets was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on whose watch the attack had occurred.

When the committee released its report on the attack in June, Pompeo and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio released a separate report that was even more sharply critical of Clinton’s handling of the affair. They wrote that Clinton intentionally misled Americans about the nature of the attack because Obama was up for re-election.

“Officials at the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, learned almost in real time that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” Pompeo and Jordan wrote. “With the presidential election just 56 days away, rather than tell the American people the truth and increase the risk of losing an election, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly.”

This story was originally published November 17, 2016 at 1:18 PM with the headline "Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to be Trump’s CIA director."