Rand Paul Goes to War against Pompeo and Haspel
Curt Mills
Politics, North America
The Republican friend of the president took to the podium to lacerate the selections Wednesday. And he’s not alone.
Sen. Rand Paul appeared on the Hill Wednesday to hold an extraordinary press conference. Not only would Paul announce his opposition to Mike Pompeo as secretary of state and Gina Haspel as CIA director, but he also attacked their selections in the most specific terms possible.
“I think it goes against most of the things President Trump campaigned on,” the senator told gathered reporters. “It perplexes me that he is now nominating, for secretary of state, someone who has advocated and pushed for regime change in Iran.” Coupled with Paul’s condemnation of Trump for bringing on “crazy neocons” to staff his administration, it amounted to a Fort Sumter moment for the GOP. Paul is calling out the president not only for failing to deliver on his campaign promises, but for delivering the very opposite: a neocon restoration.
My reporting on Tuesday and President Trump’s own statement indicated that Iran, and Trump’s continual loathing of the Obama-negotiated Iran nuclear deal, was a major impetus for the change-up at Foggy Bottom. “I agree with Rand Paul that someone who favors war with Iran over diplomacy should not be heading the State Department,” says Scott McConnell, founding editor of The American Conservative. McConnell supported Trump for president. “Trump’s opposition to the Iran deal is the weakest part of his presidency; during the campaign, he seemed skeptical of neoconservatism (and their Iraq war project) so it’s really disappointing to see him moving in their direction.” Paul also approvingly mentioned Trump’s stated opposition to the Iraq mission.
Paul then laid into Haspel, reading a account on her from one her former colleagues on her time heading a CIA black site prison in South Asia shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The senator unflinchingly called the conduct she oversaw “torture.”
“The quote says that Gina Haspel said, ‘Good job. I like the way you’re drooling. . . . It adds to the realism. I’m almost buying it. You wouldn’t think a grown man would do that,’” Paul quoted, before adding: “When you read that. Sort of the joyful glee at someone who is being tortured. I find it just amazing that anyone would consider having this woman at the head of the CIA.”
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