Michael Richard Pompeo

Michael Richard Pompeo (; born December 30, 1963) is an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served under President as (CIA) from 2017 to 2018 and as the   from 2018 to 2021. He is the first person to have held both of those positions.

After graduating from the in 1986 and his obligatory five-year service as a officer, Pompeo earned a law degree from . He worked as an attorney until 1998 and then became an entrepreneur in the aerospace and oilfield industries. Pompeo was elected to the from 2011 to 2017, representing .

Once a critic of Donald Trump, whom he called “", Pompeo became one of his biggest supporters after Trump became the Republican nominee in the . Trump appointed him in January 2017 and in April 2018. Pompeo was the Trump Administration’s most vocal critic of the , including his opposition to the , and in opposition to China's policies regarding Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea. He advocated for and the withdrawal of the United States from the .

During Pompeo's tenure as Secretary of State, he prioritized grounding human rights in and brokering peace in the Middle East. He established the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, moved the from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and negotiated the which established diplomatic normalcy between and the . He was among the staunchest Trump loyalists in the and routinely flouted State Department norms in aid of Trump’s objectives.

Pompeo was born in , the son of Dorothy (born Mercer) and Wayne Pompeo. His paternal great-grandparents, Carlo Pompeo and Adelina Tollis were born in , , , and emigrated to the United States in 1899 and 1900, respectively. In 1982, Pompeo graduated from in , where he played forward on the basketball team. In 1986, Pompeo from the , where he majored in engineering management. He was a classmate of and , who later helped him found Thayer Aerospace.

From 1986 to 1991, Pompeo served in the U.S. Army as an with the -based in the . He served as a   before becoming a   executive officer and then the squadron maintenance officer. Pompeo left the U.S. Army at the rank of .

In 1994, Pompeo earned a from , where he was an editor of the and the .

After graduating from law school, he worked as a lawyer for in Washington.

In 1996, Pompeo moved to , where he and three West Point friends, , , and Michael Stradinger, acquired three aircraft-part manufacturers there (Aero Machine, Precision Profiling, B&B Machine) and in St. Louis (Advance Tool & Die), renaming the entity Thayer Aerospace after West Point superintendent . Venture funding for the private organization included a nearly 20% investment from as well as Dallas-based Cardinal Investment, and (Brechbuhl worked for Bain at the time). Brechbuhl and Stradinger left the company shortly after it was founded, but Pompeo and Bulatao continued.

In 2006, he sold his interest in the company, which by then had been renamed Nex-Tech Aerospace, to , which had clients including , , , , and . Pompeo then became president of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment manufacturer that was also a partner of .

In 2017, when Pompeo became head of the , he named his former business partner, , the agency's .

Elections

U.S. congressional delegation at the in 2014

Pompeo represented from 2011 until his January 2017 appointment to director of the (CIA).

In the , Pompeo won the Republican primary for Kansas's 4th District congressional seat with 39% of the vote, defeating   (who received 24%) and two other candidates. Late in the primary, Schodorf began to surge in the polls, prompting two outside groups—Common Sense Issues and —to spend tens of thousands of dollars in the campaign's final days to attack Schodorf and support Pompeo. In the general election, Pompeo defeated Democratic nominee , a member of the . Pompeo received 59% of the vote (117,171 votes) to 36% for Goyle (71,866). During Pompeo's campaign, its affiliated account praised as a "good read" a news article that called Goyle, his opponent, a "turban topper" who "could be a muslim, a hindu, a buddhist etc. who knows". Pompeo later apologized to Goyle for the tweet. Pompeo received $80,000 in donations during the campaign from and its employees.

In the , Pompeo defeated Democratic nominee Robert Tillman by a margin of 62–32%. Koch Industries gave Pompeo's campaign $110,000.

In the , Pompeo won the general election with 67% of the vote, defeating Democrat Perry Schuckman.

In the , Pompeo beat Democrat Daniel B. Giroux in the general election with 61% of the vote.

Tenure in Congress

Pompeo served on the , the , the , the , the , and the .

Pompeo was a member of the .

Pompeo was original sponsor of the .

Official portrait of Mike Pompeo as World War II veterans being honored at celebrations on July 13, 2017

On November 18, 2016, President-elect announced that he would nominate Pompeo to be the . He was confirmed by the Senate on January 23, 2017, with a vote of 66–32, and sworn in later that day. In his confirmation he failed to disclose the links between his company in Kansas and a Chinese government owned firm.

In February 2017, Pompeo traveled to and . He met with Turkish president to discuss policy on Syria and . Pompeo honored the then-  with the CIA's "" Medal. It was the first reaffirmation of since Trump took office in January 2017. In March 2017, Pompeo formally invoked to prevent CIA officers, including and , from being compelled to testify in the trial of and .

In June 2017, Pompeo named head of the CIA's .

In August 2017, Pompeo took direct command of the Counterintelligence Mission Center, the department which helped to launch an investigation into possible . Former CIA officials, including , expressed concern given Pompeo's proximity to the White House and Donald Trump.

In September 2017, Pompeo sought authority for the CIA to make covert drone strikes without the , including inside Afghanistan.

During 2018, Pompeo visited North Korea and met with Supreme Leader to discuss the upcoming between Kim and Trump.

Pompeo usually personally delivered the in the . At Trump's request, Pompeo met with former NSA official to discuss his doubts of .

At the suggestion of , president of the , Pompeo planned to hire chaplains at the CIA.

Main articles: and

Nomination and confirmation

President Trump announced on March 13, 2018, that he would nominate Pompeo to serve as , succeeding , who stepped down on March 31, 2018.

On April 23, the voted 11–9 in favor of sending Pompeo's nomination to the full Senate, with Senator voting "present" and , who was absent that day, voting "yes by proxy". In the interest of saving the committee's time, Coons decided to vote "present", as the vote would have been tied if he had voted no on the nomination with Isakson absent, a situation that would have nullified his vote. The Senate floor vote took place on April 26 and Pompeo was confirmed by the full Senate by a 57–42 vote, with five of ten Democratic senators running for reelection in in states that Trump won in , voting to confirm Pompeo.

Pompeo was sworn in on April 26, 2018. In testimony before the senate, he promised to prioritize improving the low-morale issue at the State Department.