What to Know About Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump's Pick to Lead CIA
Rep. Mike Pompeo has been tapped to serve as CIA director.
— -- President-elect Donald J. Trump has tapped Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas to serve as his CIA director.
“I am honored to have been given this opportunity to serve and to work alongside President-elect Donald J. Trump to keep America safe,” Pompeo said today in a statement. “I also look forward to working with America’s intelligence warriors, who do so much to protect Americans each and every day.
Pompeo, who supported Sen. Marco Rubio during the GOP primaries, is so far the only person named to the Trump administration, other than Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who supported another candidate during the 2016 election.
Here are a few things to know about Pompeo:
The Basics
Name: Michael Richard Pompeo
Party: Republican
Date of Birth: Dec. 30, 1963
Age: 52
Birthplace: Orange, Calif.
What He Does Now
Pompeo represents Kansas’ 4th Congressional District. He has accepted Trump's offer to direct the CIA, but needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
What He Used to Do
Before his 2010 election to represent the district, Pompeo was president of Sentry International, a Midwest company that sells imported pumping units to U.S. gas and oil distributors. Before that, he founded a Wichita, Kansas, company originally known as Thayer Aerospace, which manufactures components for the commercial aerospace, defense and space industries.
After graduating from West Point, Pompeo served as a cavalry officer in the U.S. Army.
Education
Pompeo attended West Point, where he graduated first in his class, and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review.
Key life-career moments
As a congressman, Pompeo served on the House Intelligence Committee, conducting oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies, and the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Pompeo and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, released in June their own addendum to the House Benghazi Committee report that condemned Hillary Clinton's leadership of the State Department during the deadly Benghazi, Libya, attack, and accused the administration of misleading the public about events there.
The supplement was far more critical than the GOP majority report led by the committee chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
Pompeo opposes the Iran deal, arguing in a summer op-ed that it hasn't helped make the United States safer. "Congress must act to change Iranian behavior and, ultimately, the Iranian regime," he wrote on Fox News’ website.
He is opposed to closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, and has also advocating for strengthening U.S. surveillance capabilities.
"Robust surveillance, drawing on a variety of technical and human intelligence and backed up by rigorous investigation of all leads, is the best way to mitigate the threat," of terrorism, he wrote in a January 2016 Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Pompeo also serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.