Kentucky senator Rand Paul said he would oppose the president’s picks for secretary of state and CIA director, criticizing one over what he described as support for regime change and both for their links to torture.
Trump announced in a tweet Tuesday that he would be nominating current CIA director Mike Pompeo to be his secretary of state, and current deputy CIA director Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo.
“I’m going to do everything I can to block them,” Paul told reporters. The Kentucky senator sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, which would consider Pompeo’s nomination before it goes to the full Senate for a vote. He was the only GOP senator to vote against Pompeo in January 2017 for CIA director.
Paul said Pompeo is unfit to be the chief diplomat because of what he described as his support for regime change.
“Somebody that’s advocating for regime change doesn’t really sound like somebody you’d want to have as your chief diplomat,” he said. “The replacement of Tillerson with Pompeo will be the replacement of someone who is advocating diplomacy with someone who is advocating regime change.”
Paul said he was “perplexed” by the nomination, which he said contradicts the “lesson of the Iraq war” as well as the president’s own opposition to that war.
“Regime change has unintended consequences,” he said. “If you appoint the people who are unapologetic in their support for the Iraq war, and they also advocate for regime change in Iran, it’s sort of like, nobody got the message of the Iraq war.”
“Pick people who support your policy,” he advised Trump. “These are the crazy neoconservatives that really have opposed Trump on everything, and he’s actually considering, and has appointed many of these people to his Cabinet.”
Paul said he would also be opposing Haspel’s nomination because of her involvement in the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs.
“Appointing someone to be head of the CIA who was actively involved with waterboarding someone and was gleefully sort-of, just expressing their joy at his suffering, I think is the wrong kind of message to send the world,” he said.
Paul referred to Haspel’s time overseeing a CIA “black site” in Thailand, where suspected al-Qaeda terrorists were subject to waterboarding. She later reportedly supported the destruction of video footage from those interrogation sessions, under orders from her then-boss Jose Rodriguez.
“To really appoint the head cheerleader for waterboarding to be head of the CIA, I mean, how could you trust somebody who did that to be in charge of the CIA?” he said.
Haspel is also facing scrutiny from some Democrats. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden called for information about Haspel’s involvement the CIA’s interrogation programs to be declassified, describing the secrecy as amounting to a “cover-up.” Others, like top intelligence committee Democrat Mark Warner and the lead on a 2014 congressional “torture report” Dianne Feinstein, gave an even-keeled response Tuesday after news of the nomination.
But Republican votes are critical, as the GOP holds a thin 51-49 majority in the Senate. Arizona senator John McCain said Tuesday that Haspel would have to answer to her involvement in the CIA’s interrogation program.
Paul, asked whether he expected no votes from other Republican senators, said, “we’ll see.”
“If [McCain] alone were to say no, I think it might be enough,” he said. “It depends on the solidarity of the Democrats.”
Haspel would be the first woman to fill the role if confirmed. She has been at the CIA for longer than two decades.
