Disturbing Senate confirmation hearing shows why Pompeo should not be confirmed

This morn­ing, Mike Pom­peo — who is Don­ald Trump’s choice to replace Rex Tiller­son as Sec­re­tary of State — gave tes­ti­mo­ny to the Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee in advance of the full Sen­ate’s vote on his con­fir­ma­tion.

Some Repub­li­can sen­a­tors were sat­is­fied with gen­er­al answers Pom­peo gave regard­ing his admin­is­tra­tive skills in how he has man­aged the CIA.

Oth­ers had seri­ous con­cerns about how Pom­peo would per­form as Sec­re­tary of State, which is one of the coun­try’s old­est and most impor­tant posi­tions, dat­ing back to the admin­is­tra­tion of George Washington.

Sen­a­tor Ed Markey of Mass­a­chu­setts was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­tressed with Pompeo’s response regard­ing a ques­tion on North Korea. Pom­peo was will­ing to say that he could see cir­cum­stances in which Amer­i­ca would have ground troops occu­py North Korea. Sen­a­tor Markey seemed hor­ri­fied at that response.

Sen­a­tor Bob Menen­dez of New Jer­sey seemed con­cerned that Pom­peo would not be forth­com­ing to Con­gress regard­ing the inten­tions of the President.

Pom­peo refused to answer when the Sen­a­tor asked him about a pri­vate meet­ing with Trump. Menen­dez asked if Trump had dis­cussed Spe­cial Coun­sel Robert Mueller’s inves­ti­ga­tion with him. Pom­peo said flat­ly: “ Sen­a­tor, I’m not going to talk about pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions I’ve had with the President.”

When asked again lat­er in the hear­ing regard­ing the pri­vate meet­ing said that he could not recall the con­ver­sa­tion, remem­bered there was a meet­ing, remem­bered the date of the meet­ing, but could not recall what the Pres­i­dent said in the meet­ing. He insist­ed the Pres­i­dent did not ask him to do any­thing improper.

When asked how he would know that if he can­not recall the con­ver­sa­tion, Pom­peo gave a cir­cu­lar and con­vo­lut­ed response say­ing that he would have recalled if the Pres­i­dent had asked him to do some­thing improper.

Sen­a­tor Cory Book­er seemed par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned with Pompeo’s rela­tion­ships with extrem­ist right wing radio per­son­al­i­ties who have spo­ken open­ly and pub­licly about their Islam­o­pho­bic sentiments.

Book­er first thanked Pom­peo for his def­er­ence and respect in vis­it­ing his office pri­or to the hear­ing, and then brought up spe­cif­ic top­ics of con­ver­sa­tion from that meet­ing that he felt con­cerned and uncom­fort­able with.

Book­er stat­ed that Pom­peo had implied that Mus­lim peo­ple had a respon­si­bil­i­ty to speak out against any act of ter­ror per­formed by a Mus­lim per­son, and if they did not, then they were com­plic­it in that act of terrorism.

Pom­peo strug­gled to to artic­u­late his posi­tion. He insist­ed that he is accept­ing of all peo­ple regard­less of reli­gion, and told Book­er that what he meant was that Mus­lim lead­ers had an “oppor­tu­ni­ty” to speak out against terrorism.

He had a hard time explain­ing him­self as Sen­a­tor Book­er brought to the hear­ing quotes from Pom­peo mak­ing dis­parag­ing remarks about peo­ple who wor­ship dif­fer­ent gods, peo­ple of the Mus­lim faith, and his quote that Mus­lim peo­ple had a “spe­cial oblig­a­tion” to speak out against ter­ror­ist attacks.

Pom­peo stut­tered and shift­ed uncom­fort­ably as he described him­self as a man who accepts all peo­ple from dif­fer­ent faiths or those who choose to have no faith, and that all peo­ple had a respon­si­bil­i­ty to speak out against terrorism.

Sen­a­tor Book­er stat­ed that he was hap­py to hear Pom­peo say this out loud in in the hear­ing. “Words mat­ter,” Book­er said. Actions are also impor­tant, and Book­er stressed that Pom­peo needs to under­stand that his past actions and rela­tion­ships give the appear­ance that as Sec­re­tary of State he may not be moti­vat­ed to uphold Amer­i­ca’s val­ues, includ­ing free­dom to prac­tice any faith tradition.

Sen­a­tor Book­er then pressed Pom­peo on his posi­tion on the free­dom to marry.

Pom­peo made it very clear that he felt mar­riage equal­i­ty was wrong, but insist­ed that he accepts LGBTQ+ peo­ple and that his posi­tion does not mean that he sup­ports dis­crim­i­na­to­ry poli­cies against peo­ple who don’t iden­ti­fy as straight het­ero­sex­u­als. Book­er asked very point­ed­ly: “Do you think that being gay is a per­ver­sion?” But Pom­peo refused to take back his pre­vi­ous statements.

“I stand by my posi­tion on this issue,” he said.

Sen­a­tor Book­er con­clud­ed his line of ques­tion­ing by not­ing his con­cerns about Pompeo’s posi­tion that Mus­lim peo­ple have an oblig­a­tion to speak out against ter­ror­ism, and his posi­tions on reli­gious free­dom and the right for peo­ple of same sex to mar­ry. Book­er stat­ed that the Sec­re­tary of State must uphold the Con­sti­tu­tion and that the posi­tions of the Sec­re­tary of State matter.

Sen­a­tor Rand Paul was dis­sat­is­fied with the respons­es that Pom­peo gave regard­ing his will­ing­ness to use mil­i­tary force around the world.

Paul asked if Pom­peo believed that the Pres­i­dent should be able to enter into a con­flict, and not­ed the pow­er to declare war rests with Con­gress, not the President.

Paul quot­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion to Pom­peo, who seemed to dis­agree with Paul’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the pow­ers the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States has to enter into  con­flicts. Sen­a­tor Paul expressed seri­ous con­cerns about Pompeo’s posi­tion on remain­ing in Afghanistan. Paul point­ed out that all of the peo­ple who were involved in the Sep­tem­ber 11th attacks are gone, and: “We are now send­ing peo­ple to war who were not born when ⁹⁄₁₁ hap­pened.” Sen­a­tor Paul com­pared the quag­mire of Afgan­istan to Viet­nam and drew com­par­isons. Pom­peo dis­agreed with Paul’s com­par­i­son and reit­er­at­ed his posi­tion of the pow­ers of the President.

Sen­a­tor Bri­an Schatz of Hawaii had a sim­i­lar line of ques­tion­ing as Sen­a­tor Paul. He asked specif­i­cal­ly what lim­i­ta­tions he believes are applied to the Pres­i­dent by Arti­cle II of the Con­sti­tu­tion. As Pom­peo shift­ed uncom­fort­ably, he implied that he is not a con­sti­tu­tion­al law expert, and this par­tic­u­lar issue has been debat­ed for some time.

Sen­a­tor Schatz remind­ed Pom­peo that he had served in Con­gress, and that his job as Sec­re­tary of State would require him to answer to Con­gress, and requires a com­mit­ment to diplo­ma­cy and inter­na­tion­al norms.

Schatz lat­er tweet­ed: “I will be vot­ing no on Mike Pompeo’s nom­i­na­tion to be Sec­re­tary of State. Diplo­mats should believe in diplo­ma­cy. America’s top diplo­mat must be pas­sion­ate about diplo­ma­cy. Mike Pom­peo has not demon­strat­ed that he val­ues diplo­ma­cy, diplo­mats, or the State Depart­ment itself.”

Pom­peo seems to favor mil­i­tary solu­tions, take a very right wing and exec­u­tive branch cen­tered per­spec­tive to for­eign policy.

That’s a prob­lem. Sec­re­taries of State must be com­mit­ted to diplo­ma­cy across the world and embrace the free­dom and democ­ra­cy that Amer­i­ca stands for.

As Sen­a­tor Book­er stat­ed, “Words mat­ter.”  The words that Pom­peo spoke today demon­strate that he is will­ing to keep infor­ma­tion from Con­gress and the Amer­i­can pub­lic. He is will­ing to make for­eign pol­i­cy deci­sions with­out input from Congress.

Pom­peo does not respect the basic pre­cepts of the Con­sti­tu­tion, includ­ing the First Amend­ment, which pro­vides that Con­gress shall make no law respect­ing an estab­lish­ment of reli­gion, or pro­hibit­ing the free exer­cise there­of.

Pom­peo seems more inter­est­ed in pleas­ing Don­ald Trump and hid­ing what­ev­er mem­bers of the For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee want to know about their secret meet­ing regard­ing Mueller’s inves­ti­ga­tion. He should not be confirmed.