By Samantha Woolf 4/25/2018
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee narrowly approved CIA Director Mike Pompeo for secretary of state after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) reversed his objection for the candidate late Monday evening.
The committee was expected to reject Pompeo, which would have been the first time a Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave a nominee for secretary of state an unfavorable vote. However, minutes before the committee met to discuss the endorsement, Paul gave Pompeo his support for secretary of state. Paul’s new approval secures the Senate’s endorsement for Pompeo as President Trump’s secretary of state.
Paul, because of his stance against interventionist foreign policy, was originally not endorsing Pompeo. He wrote that he changed his stance against Pompeo due to assurances from the president that Pompeo wants to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and that Pompeo believes the war in Iraq was a mistake.