President Trump's CIA director Mike Pompeo called Snowden "a traitor who deserves the death penalty"

[basquebromance]

good pick or bad pick?

 

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[basquebromance]

Mike's a West Point and Harvard Law grad!

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - line the traitor up in front of a firin' squad...

Member of Tea Party who wants Edward Snowden executed is nominated as Director of CIA
Saturday 19th November, 2016 | WASHINGTON, DC - A member of the Tea party, who is a life member of the National Rifle Association, and who has called for the death penalty for whistleblower Edward Snowden, has been nominated to be the Director of the CIA.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Mike Pompeo, who has spent the last five years in the House of Representatives for the Kansas 4th congressional district, to run the CIA. He also also annointed retired General Mike Flynn has his national security adviser. Born in California, a little over a month after the JFK assassination, CIA Director-designate Mike Pompeo is now 52. On Friday he confirmed he had been offered the position of CIA Director and that he had accepted the nomination. Pompeo met earlier this week with the President-elect's transition team in New York's Trump Tower. Pompeo earlier this month told C-SPAN Edward Snowden, who he described as "the traitor Edward Snowden," should be put on trial after which he should be executed.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, is currently in Moscow after fleeing the United States following his leaking of multiple reports on U.S. intelligence gathering to major international newspapers. "He should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence," Pompeo said in the C-SPAN interview on November 2nd. "Having put friends of mine, friends of yours who serve in the military today an enormous risk because of the information he stole and then released to foreign powers," he added.

Interestingly Trump tapped Pompeo before news leaked that he was going to nominate Sen. Jeff Sessions to be his Attorney General. Normally the CIA director reports to the Attorney General, and would in usual circumstances be appointed by him (or her). Trump however has made his own choice. Pompeo has been on Snowden's back since 2014 when he wrote to organisers of the SXSW Conference which invited Snowden to address attendees by a video presentation.

Pompeo had tried unsuccessfully to get the organisers to withdraw the invitation. He said he was “deeply troubled” by the giving of a platform to someone “whose only apparent qualification is his willingness to steal from his own government.” He said this would promote “the very lawlessness he exhibited.” “Mr. Snowden’s continued pursuit of the limelight has little to do with online privacy and everything to do with ensuring that he stays in the good graces of his new home nation," he wrote. "Once he stops doing interviews attacking America’s ability to collect intelligence lawfully, he stops being useful to the Kremlin.” Pompeo has taken a stand on a number of controversial issues, and made a number of controversial statements during his time in Congress.

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[Dot Com]

good pick or bad pick?

apparently a bad pick. Snowden is a patriot

 

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Pompeo investigated more than rosy CENTCOM reports...

Rep. Pompeo: 'To Tell a Soldier That You're Waiting on an IG Report Is Unacceptable'
November 18, 2016 | At a hearing of the House intelligence committee on Thursday, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) asked a senior Defense Department official who's been held accountable for the "manipulation" of intelligence information by senior Central Command leaders two years ago.

A report produced by Pompeo and other members of Congress this past August found that CENTCOM leaders, from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, provided a more positive picture of U.S. fight against ISIS than was warranted by facts on the ground. In August, when the report was released, Pompeo said American troops may have been put at risk, since policymakers were relying on overly rosy views of the fight against ISIS, and therefore may not have allocated sufficient resources to the fight.

On Thursday, Pompeo noted that the report cited "clear cases of intelligence manipulation," and he asked Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work who has been held accountable: "Sir, what we've been waiting on is the completion of the IG (inspector-general) investigation," Work replied. Work also admitted he hadn't read the congressional report "in detail." "Mr. Work, it's been, just for the record, it's two years; we have soldiers in the field, and we had intelligence that wasn't getting to the right place to keep these young men and women safe, so that we could make good policy decisions. To tell a soldier that you're waiting on an IG report is unacceptable. Tell me who's been held accountable!" Pompeo demanded.

Work said he would have to ask an under-secretary if anyone's been held accountable. "What the (Defense) Secretary (Ash Carter) and I have said over and over and over again, (we) expect the highest standards in the intelligence community--" "Did we get that, Mr. Work?" Pompeo interrupted. "Um, no--" Work said. "Did the soldiers get that?" Pompeo asked. "The IG report will tell us," Work said, "but as (National Intelligence) Director (James) Clapper spoke to, the overall assessment is that we are improving."

Marcel Lettre, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, jumped in, telling Pompeo, "[W]e are not able to take authoritative personnel actions on these instances and allegations until the IG investigation is done. It has taken quite a while. I think we are as -- we are as eager as this committee is to get the results of this IG investigation and be able to take action on those." In the interim, Lettre noted, the DOD has taken a few "systemic actions," such as encouraging all intelligence analysts to "call it like they see it and speak truth to power." Lettre also noted that to "reinforce analytic integrity, we're in the process of ensuring that every organization has an analytic ombudsman in place -- someone that analysts can come to anonymously and report concerns that they may have and have an advocate..."

Pompeo said those things "sound great to me, but I have to tell you, the American people, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines deserve not to wait two years to hold accountable folks who put bad information in the field." The congressional report, produced by a joint House task force of which Pompeo was a member, investigated the allegations of a whistleblower who said that "intelligence produced by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) had been manipulated to present an unduly positive outlook on CENTCOM efforts to train the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and combat the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)." The report also said, "Analytic integrity is crucial to good intelligence, and good intelligence is crucial to making informed policy judgments."

Source

See also:

Trump Taps Conservative Kansas Congressman for CIA
Nov 18, 2016 | WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has offered the CIA director job to Mike Pompeo, a conservative Republican congressman from Kansas.

President-elect Donald Trump has offered the CIA director job to Mike Pompeo, a conservative Republican congressman from Kansas who has heavily criticized the Iran deal and was a member of the congressional committee that blasted Hillary Clinton over the attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya. Pompeo, 52, was elected to Congress during the tea party wave of 2010. He has been a fierce critic of Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, which granted Tehran sanctions relief for rolling back its nuclear weapons program. Pompeo has said that Muslim leaders are "potentially complicit" in terrorist attacks if they do not denounce those made in the name of Islam. "They must cite the Koran as evidence that the murder of innocents is not permitted," he said in a 2013 House floor speech.

A member of the House intelligence committee, Pompeo called former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's actions "lawless," referring to Snowden's cataloguing of surveillance programs that found the U.S. government collected the phone records of millions of Americans. In 2014, he was appointed to the House Select Benghazi Committee to probe the 2011 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. Pompeo was born in Orange, California, and lives in Wichita, Kansas. He enrolled as a teenager at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. and graduated first in his class in 1986. According to biographical information on his House web site, Pompeo served as a "cavalry officer patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall." He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington.​

After college, he returned to south-central Kansas where his mother had roots. He set up Thayer Aerospace and was its chief executive officer for more than 10 years. Later he was president of Sentry International, a company that sold equipment for oil fields and manufacturing. Pompeo was elected to Congress during the tea party wave of 2010. He recently led a House Republican task force that found intelligence assessments approved by senior leaders at U.S. Central Command exaggerated the progress of anti-terrorism efforts they ran against Islamic State militants. House GOP leaders formed the task force after lawmakers learned that an unnamed analyst assigned to the command had filed a formal complaint alleging that intelligence about the Islamic State group had been manipulated.

Pompeo said in a statement this week that no one has "yet been held responsible." Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee conducted their own inquiry, which found problems but no evidence that intelligence had been politicized. A spokesman for CENTCOM had declined to comment further because the task force and inspector general inquiries are still proceeding.

Trump Taps Conservative Kansas Congressman for CIA | Military.com

 

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we'll now say the word "Islam" out loud. We'll identify Islamism as our enemy.

Refreshing, huh?

 

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Iraqis and Syrians are reportedly cheering President Trump's victory...they know ISIS will be gone from their lives!

 

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Wonderful Donald and Wonderful Mike will cleanse the world of terrorism, from the ecoterrorists in the forests of Canada, to the Naxalite Marxist terrorists of India, to the Islamic terrorists of Syria & Iraq!

 

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Statements of support from elected officials and the intelligence community came pouring in for President-elect Donald J. Trump’s announcement that he intends to nominate national security stalwart Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.

Here is what reports are saying:

Wichita Eagle
“These guys are going to get tougher on terrorists, which I think is a very good thing and I think was one of the key issues of the campaign that people didn’t feel safe at home or abroad. You’re putting in place a very strong, ‘tough on terrorism’ man to head the CIA.

“Mike is smart. He’s tough. He will do an awesome job. It’s a great honor to have a Kansan nominated or put forward for a position like that. And I think that’s a wonderful pick by the incoming Trump administration,” said Gov. Sam Brownback.

Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
called Pompeo a “good and wise selection.” Pompeo’s military and private sector experience fit “with the demands of a CIA Director. Since he began his service on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, intelligence issues have become his passion.”

Rep. Lynn Jenkins, a Kansas Republican who represents Topeka, says, “He’s authentic and real and he’s going to tell you exactly what he thinks without mincing words every single time.”

“He’s an aggressive guy. And that tenacity is going to serve him very well in his role as CIA director,” said Kansas State Senator Michael O’Donnell, a Wichita Republican. “My country’s going to be safer with Mike Pompeo as director of the CIA.”

“Congressman Pompeo has served Wichita and Kansas well for a number of years on Capitol Hill. We wish him nothing but the best in his new role serving the country,” Philip Ellender, president of government & public affairs for Koch Companies Public Sector.

The Weekly Standard
"A cursory glance at his biography shows he's eminently qualified."

"Not only is Pompeo qualified for CIA director, he would represent a welcome change of direction from an Obama administration marked by catastrophic intelligence failures."

The Washington Post
Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman, is a West Point graduate and tea party ally.

He has earned a reputation as a serious student of national security issues who finished first in his class at the U.S. military academy at West Point, served as a cavalry officer in the Army and earned a law degree from Harvard.

The New York Times
Mr. Pompeo, a congressman from Kansas, gained prominence for his role in the House investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, praised Mr. Pompeo as “bright and hard working.”

“He is someone who is willing to listen and engage, both key qualities in a C.I.A. director,” Mr. Schiff said.

CNN
Pompeo has built a reputation as a stalwart conservative since starting in 2011 in the House -- opposing Obamacare, supporting the federal government shutdown and serving as a member of the House panel that investigated the Benghazi attack.

NBC News
Rep. Mike Pompeo [the Kansas congressman Donald Trump picked to lead the CIA, is a former Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate who] … is widely respected within the intelligence community for his intellect and his low key, analytical manner behind closed doors.

Intelligence officials regard Pompeo, who has been regularly interacting with them as a member of the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence, as a savvy consumer of their product who respects the agency's role.

“One of the most respected voices in the House of Representatives on national security issues, Mike will undoubtedly develop a close working relationship with Congress in his new post,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R.-Calif.) chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Bloomberg News
Pompeo is a “serious man” who carefully studies the issues he is responsible for, former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden said on Friday. “When I saw the choice, I was heartened.”

 

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Sen. Kamala Harris, D. CA, queries CIA nominee on climate change. Moron, he's in charge of the CIA! Intelligence!