CIA Director Mike Pompeo should be considered for secretary of state on his own merits, not whether lawmakers will see eye-to-eye with him on policy or any other factors, Sen. Cory Gardner said Tuesday.
"Some people were apparently offended that they weren't clued into his meeting with North Korea," the Colorado Republican told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "He is the CIA director. We want this to be successful. Don't have your feelings hurt and allow that to interfere with your vote on committee."
Democrats "probably won't" agree with Pompeo on policy, but they should remember that he has served as a CIA director, member of Congress and a private business who graduated top of his class at West Point and Harvard Law School.
"These are incredible accomplishments he has," said Gardner.
Lawmakers supported Pompeo for CIA director, and he has performed "exactly as they wanted him to do," said Gardner. However they now have to do some "political gymnastics and do contortions to figure out how to justify a reason to vote against him, when there is no reason to vote against Mike Pompeo."
There are several other confirmations ahead, including for Gina Haspel as CIA director and Dr. Ronny Jackson at the VA, but Gardner predicted the "same kind of unprecedented obstruction that we have witnessed already."
"I believe we should be here 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Gardner. "There are a lot of members who feel that way. They will make us spend 30 hours on every single one of these nominees because they dislike the outcome of the election. They dislike President Donald Trump so much that they are going to do everything they can to create roadblocks, obstruction and logjams to back this up."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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