Mike Pompeo é confirmado como diretor da CIA de Donald Trump
Por 66 votos a 32, o Senado confirmou Pompeo - o terceiro nomeado do presidente Donald Trump a ser confirmado. A decisão aconteceu depois que senadores o pressionaram a dar respostas mais detalhadas sobre suas visões sobre programas de inteligência controversos.
O senador Ron Wyden, em particular, confrontou o indicado de Trump sobre qual era seu ponto de vista sobre programas de vigilância e quais poderes o governo deve ter para coletar informações dos americanos. Pompeo se disse a favor de permitir que o governo colete e retenha dados das ligações telefônicas dos cidadãos.
Em uma coluna para o Wall Street Journal, da qual ele foi coautor no ano passado, Pompeo escreveu que o "Congresso deveria passar uma lei restabelecendo a coleta de todos os metadados e combiná-los com informações financeiras e de estilo de vida publicamente disponíveis em um banco de dados abrangente e pesquisável".
Democratas, incluindo Wyden, disseram que isso seria uma intromissão na privacidade de todos os americanos. Republicanos disseram que Pompeo votou para que esse programa expirasse.
Pompeo não foi uma escolha óbvia para chefiar a CIA. O favorito para o cargo na sequência da eleição de novembro era Mike Rogers, que já presidiu um Comitê de Inteligência da Câmara. Mas Pompeo, um membro desse comitê, atraiu apoio bipartidário para sua nomeação. Fonte: Dow Jones Newswires.
3:23 DJ Mike Pompeo Is Confirmed as Donald Trump's CIA Director
By Shane Harris and Siobhan Hughes
WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Monday confirmed Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, putting a Republican lawmaker in charge of the nation's top spy agency and helping to fill out President Donald Trump's national-security team.
By 66-32, the Senate confirmed Mr. Pompeo, who had joined Congress as part of the 2010 tea-party wave. He was the third of Mr. Trump's nominees to win confirmation.
Mr. Pompeo's confirmation was held up after senators pressed him for more detailed answers about his views about controversial intelligence programs. Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) in particular had grilled Mr. Pompeo during his confirmation hearing about his views on surveillance and what powers the government should have to collect information on Americans.
Mr. Pompeo favored allowing the government to collect and retain data on Americans' phone calls.
In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal he co-authored last year, Mr. Pompeo wrote, "Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database."
Democrats including Mr. Wyden said that would be an intrusion of Americans' privacy, less than two years after Congress allowed the government's bulk phone-data collection program to lapse. Republicans said Mr. Pompeo had voted to allow that program to expire. The program didn't record the contents of phone calls, but only metadata such as dialed phone numbers.
"It's time to turn the page," said Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas). "We need to focus now on how to defeat the threats of today and tomorrow."
Mr. Pompeo's confirmation came as other Trump nominees advanced. On Monday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted along party lines to recommend the Senate confirm Rex Tillerson, a former oil-company executive, as secretary of state. His nomination will be considered in the coming days by the full Senate, where he is expected to be confirmed.
Separate Senate committees are scheduled set to vote Tuesday on whether the full Senate should confirm Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, to be the U.S. representative to the United Nations; Elaine Chao to be transportation secretary; and Wilbur Ross to be commerce secretary.
Mr. Pompeo wasn't an obvious pick to lead the CIA. The leading candidate following the November election had been former Rep. Mike Rogers, a one-time chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
But Mr. Pompeo, a member of that committee, has attracted bipartisan support for his nomination. While he has been an unapologetic partisan, officials in Congress and in the executive branch have characterized him as a diligent overseer and supporter of the intelligence community.
Privately, U.S. officials have said his nomination has been helping to calm the waters at the CIA, following a public rift between the intelligence community and Mr. Trump over Russian cyberattacks that intelligence officials say were intended to meddle in the presidential election.
Write to Shane Harris at share.harris@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 23, 2017 20:23 ET (01:23 GMT)