The Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave CIA Director Mike Pompeo a positive recommendation Monday evening.
“The Pompeo nomination has now been reported out of the Foreign Relations Committee, and there are sufficient votes in the Senate to ensure that he will be confirmed this week as our nation’s next Secretary of State,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Monday night.
Senate Democrats and one of their hawkish Republican colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) were looking to shoot Pompeo down Monday evening.
The SFRC is currently composed of 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Every Democrat on the panel was committed to voting against Pompeo’s nomination heading into Monday’s vote, which wouldn’t have necessarily been a complete rebuke of Pompeo if all Republican members voted in lock step.
Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul was going to vote against Pompeo, which would have killed the committee’s recommendation, but Paul changed his mind hours before the committee met. Paul cited meetings with Pompeo and President Donald Trump as to why he changed his mind. Pompeo assured him he agreed with Trump’s stance the Iraq War was a mistake, the senator said.
Pompeo’s nomination now makes its way to the Senate floor for a vote before the entire upper chamber, where it is expected to pass with the help of Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.
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