The unusual process for staffing the White House

Up Pompeo

THE drama in the average congressional committee hearing makes Samuel Beckett’s plays look like fast-paced thrillers. But the afternoon session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23rd contained a genuinely exciting reversal. Reporters were prepared for the committee to deliver a historic rebuke and vote to recommend that Mike Pompeo should not be confirmed as secretary of state, something that has never happened before. Republicans hold a one-seat majority on the committee; Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, was expected to side with Democrats to protest against Mr Pompeo’s hawkishness. Moments before the committee convened, Mr Paul changed his mind, tweeting that he had “received assurances” the Mr Pompeo agrees that the Iraq war “was a mistake, that regime change has destabilised the region and that we must end our involvement with Afghanistan”. That cleared a path for his confirmation by the full Senate, filling a vacancy in the...Continue reading

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