[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 66 (Tuesday, April 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S2359]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NOMINATION OF MIKE POMPEO

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, 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 
will take their advice, and we will vote to confirm him.
  We will 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 CIA. 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 this 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 
nominees 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

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