CIA Director Mike Pompeo won praise for his “candor” about Russian interference in the 2016 elections from a senior House Democrat on Tuesday, after President Trump announced that Pompeo is his choice to lead the State Department.
“He’s a former House colleague and I respect his candor about Russia’s ongoing effort to attack American democracy,” New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Tuesday.
Engel won’t have a say over whether Pompeo is confirmed as secretary of state, as that vote takes place in the Senate. But such compliments could help offset Senate Democratic accusations that Pompeo has soft-pedaled the significance of the Russian cyberattacks against the Democratic Party in 2016.
“Before and after his confirmation as CIA director, Mike Pompeo has demonstrated a casual relationship to truth and principle,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday. ”He has downplayed Russia’s attack on our democracy, at times contradicting the intelligence community he is supposed to lead.”
Pompeo has emphasized throughout his tenure that the Russian government was responsible for the 2016 election interference, but that this activity is part of a larger trend. On Sunday, he dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent suggestion that private actors, rather than the Russian government, might be to blame.
“There’s a long history of Russian efforts to influence the United States and conduct influence operations against the United States,” Pompeo told Fox News. “And it was Russians who actually engaged in this, not somebody from outside of the country or disconnected from Russia.”
Engel took a warmer approach to Pompeo than some Democrats. “I sincerely hope he’s not being set up to fail as so many others have been by this White House,” he said. “We need to understand his vision of America’s role in the world, the importance of our alliances and partnerships, and how he intends to advance our interests as well as our values. I will be listening closely.”
