Mike Pompeo

Mike Pompeo
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas's 4th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011
Preceded by	Todd Tiahrt
Personal details
Born	Michael Richard Pompeo (1963-12-30) December 30, 1963 Orange, California, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Susan Pompeo
Children	1
Education	United States Military Academy (BS) Harvard University (JD)
Website	Congressman Mike Pompeo's official U.S. House site
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1986–1991[1]
Rank	Captain[1]
Unit	2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division[2]

Michael Richard "Mike" Pompeo (born December 30, 1963) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Kansas's 4th congressional district since 2011. He is a member of the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party.^[3][4] He was a Kansas representative on the Republican National Committee. On November 18, 2016, he was selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be Trump's nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.^[5]

Education, and early career

Pompeo was born in Orange, California, the son of Dorothy (née Mercer) and Wayne Pompeo.^[6][7] He attended the U.S. Military Academy where he majored in Mechanical Engineering, graduating first in his class in 1986 and subsequently serving in the Regular Army as an Armor Branch cavalry officer from 1986 to 1991.^[8] He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He then worked as a lawyer for Williams & Connolly.^[9]

Military Service

As a teenager, he enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated first in his class from West Point in 1986 and then served as a cavalry officer patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also served with the 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry in the Fourth Infantry Division. He served his last tour in the Gulf War.

Business career

Pompeo founded Thayer Aerospace and Private Security.^[10] In 2006 he sold his interest in Thayer (which was renamed Nex-Tech Aerospace). He became the President of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment company.^[11]

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2010

In the 2010 Kansas Republican primary for the 4th District Congressional seat, Pompeo defeated State Senator Jean Schodorf (who received 24%), Wichita businessman Wink Hartman (who received 23%), and small business owner Jim Anderson (who received 13%). State Senator Dick Kelsey also ran for the nomination, but ended his campaign before the August primary and endorsed Pompeo.^[12][13][14] Late in the primary, Schodorf began to surge, prompting two outside groups—Americans for Prosperity and Common Sense Issues, an Ohio-based political group—to enter the race, spending tens of thousands of dollars in the final campaign days to attack Schodorf and support Pompeo.^[15]

In the general election, Pompeo defeated Democratic nominee State Representative Raj Goyle. Pompeo received 59% of the vote (117,171 votes), to 36% for Goyle (71,866).^[16]

During the campaign, Pompeo received $80,000 in donations from Koch Industries and its employees.^[17]

2012

In his 2012 re-election bid, Pompeo defeated Democratic nominee Robert Tillman by a margin of 62%-32%.^[18]

2014

Pompeo won the general election, defeating Democrat Perry Schuckman, with 66.7% of the vote.^[19]

2016

Pompeo won the general election with 60.6% of the vote.^[20]

Committee assignments

Pompeo has been on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Energy and Commerce, and the following 3 subcommittees: the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, and the Subcommittee on the CIA. He is also on the House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi.^[21]

Nomination to be CIA Director

On November 18, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Pompeo to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.^[22]

Political positions

Pompeo speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.

Abortion

Pompeo is strongly opposed to abortion, except in cases when the mother's life is at risk.^[23] He does not support abortion in cases of rape and incest.^[24]

Energy and environment

On May 9, 2013, Pompeo introduced the Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act (H.R. 1900; 113th Congress).^[25]

The bill placed a 12-month deadline on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, requiring it to approve or reject any proposal for a natural gas pipeline within that timeframe.^[26] The bill passed the House along party lines but not voted on in the Senate.^[27]

Pompeo rejects many concepts about global warming.^[28] In 2013, he said, "There are scientists who think lots of different things about climate change. There's some who think we're warming, there's some who think we’re cooling, there's some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment."^[28]

Pompeo has referred to President Obama's environment and climate change plans as "damaging" and "radical".^[29] He opposes the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, and supports eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas registry program.^[30] He has said that Obama's Clean Power Plan does not provide "any measurable environmental benefit."^[29]

He signed the Americans for Prosperity's No Climate Tax pledge.^[31] He has called for the elimination of wind power production tax credits, calling them an "enormous government handout".^[32] He predicted a new energy bill would cost millions of jobs and make the United States a net food importer.^[33]

Firearms

Pompeo is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, which has endorsed him.^[34]

Healthcare

Pompeo opposes the Affordable Care Act.^[35]

Genetically modified foods

Pompeo opposes requiring food suppliers to label food made with genetically modified organisms, and to that end in April 2014 introduced the "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act" to block states from requiring mandatory GMO food labeling.^[36]

Government shutdown

Pompeo supported the U.S. federal government shutdown of 2013, blaming President Obama while acknowledging that the Republican Party could take a hit from the shutdown. He stated that he believed the shutdown was necessary to avoid a predicted "American financial collapse 10 years from now."^[37]

In January 2014, Pompeo voted against a two-year budget deal drafted by Paul Ryan that would avert any government shutdown until 2015 and cut deficits by $23 billion.^[38]

Manufacturing

Pompeo introduced the Small Airplane Revitalization Act of 2013 into the House on May 7, 2013.

Military

Pompeo has been critical of President Obama, whom he repeatedly alleged was indecisive and not appropriately respectful of military leaders such as General McChrystal, who was forced to submit his resignation for having made negative comments about the president to Rolling Stone magazine. He accused the president of "unforgivably fail[ing] to provide the total commitment of our national means to our servicemen in the field."^[39]

National security

Pompeo speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.

Pompeo supports the National Security Agency's surveillance programs, characterizing the agency's efforts as "good and important work."^[40] In March 2014, Pompeo denounced NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's inclusion in the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, and called for Snowden's invitation to speak via telecast at the annual Texas event be withdrawn, lest it encourage "lawless behavior" among attendees.^[41] In February 2016, Pompeo said Snowden "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."^[42]

Pompeo has advocated for rolling back post-Snowden surveillance reforms, saying "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. Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed. That includes Presidential Policy Directive-28, which bestows privacy rights on foreigners and imposes burdensome requirements to justify data collection."^[43]

On July 21, 2015, Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton alleged the existence of secret side agreements between Iran and the IAEA on procedures for inspection and verification of Iran's nuclear activities under the Iran nuclear deal. The Obama administration denied any clandestine or secret actions.^[44][45][46]

Administration officials acknowledge the existence of agreements between Iran and the IAEA governing the inspection of sensitive military sites, but deny the characterization that they are “secret side deals,” saying instead that they are standard practice in crafting arms-control pacts and that the Administration had provided the information on them that was at its disposal to Congress.^[45]

In a 2013 speech on the House floor, Pompeo said Muslim leaders who fail to denounce acts of terrorism done in the name of Islam are "potentially complicit" in the attacks.^[47] The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Pompeo to revise his remarks, calling them "false and irresponsible".^[48]

Pompeo opposes closing Guantánamo Bay detention camp.^[49] After a 2013 visit to the prison, Pompeo said, of the prisoners who were on hunger strike, "It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight."^[50]

Pompeo has criticized the Obama administration's decision to end the CIA's secret prisons (so-called "black sites"), and the administration's requirement that all interrogators adhere to anti-torture laws.^[51]

References

External links

• Mike Pompeo at DMOZ
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Maplight Campaign Contributions

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas
1st district	Phillips Anderson Morrill Broderick Curtis Anthony Lambertson Cole H. Miller Avery Dole Sebelius Roberts Moran Huelskamp Marshall (elect)
2nd district	Goodin Haskell Funston H. Moore O. Miller M. Peters Bowersock Scott Mitchell Taggart E. Little Guyer C. Little Guyer Scrivner George Ellsworth Avery Mize Roy Keys Jeffries Slattery Brownback Ryun Boyda Jenkins
3rd district	Brown Ryan Perkins Clover Hudson Kirkpatrick Ridgely A. Jackson Campbell Sproul McGugin Patterson Winter Meyer George Hargis McVey Ellsworth Winn Meyers Snowbarger D. Moore Yoder
4th district	Ryan Kelley Otis Curtis J. Miller F. Jackson Doolittle Hoch Carpenter E. Rees Shriver Glickman Tiahrt Pompeo
5th district	Anderson Davis Calderhead Vincent Calderhead R. Rees Helvering Strong Ayres Houston Hope Breeding Skubitz Whittaker Nichols
6th district	Hanback Turner Baker McCormick Reeder Young Connelly White Sparks McCarthy Carlson Smith Dole
7th district	S. Peters Simpson Long Simpson Long Murdock Madison Neeley Shouse Tincher Hope
8th district	Murdock Ayres Bird Ayres
At-large	Conway Wilder Clarke Lowe (1873–1875: Lowe Cobb Phillips) (1883–1885: Hanback Morrill Perkins S. Peters) Harris Blue Botkin Bailey Scott
Territory	Whitfield Parrott