Republican Jeff Sessions was the first Senator to endorse Donald Trump, and he will now join the new administration as attorney general.
Retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, a firm supporter of Trump’s stance on fighting radical Islam will act as Trump’s national security adviser. The president-elect also picked Mike Pompeo, a Republican congressman from Kansas who criticized the Obama administration for protecting Hillary Clinton. Both Sessions and Pompeo will have to be voted by the Senate, which will hold a Republican majority in January when the new administration is set to take office.
A fully conservative government team
Jeff Sessions worked under the Reagan administration as a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama and then becoming Attorney General of Alabama. Currently, he is in his fourth term as senator.
Sessions has been ranked as one of the most deeply conservative U.S. Senators in history. Just like Trump, he has been criticized for his stances on political issues by the GOP. Throughout his career, Sessions has opposed Democratic leadership, while also being a strong supporter of George W. Bush’s actions. At first, Sessions was considered by Trump as a running mate, but Mike Pence beat him to the position.
The Alabama-born Senator served as a campaign adviser for Trump. He also has made remarks about Trump’s language, labeling it as “improper,” although he did not go as far as classifying it as sexual assault. Sessions supports cutting taxes, stricter immigration policy and conservative social policies. He is also against abortion, Obamacare, greenhouse gas regulation, same-sex marriage, and the legalization of marijuana.
Sessions is one of the nine Senators who did not want to prohibit degrading, cruel, and inhumane punishment to those under the custody of the United States back in 2005, and has also proposed building a fence along the Southern U.S. border.
Mike Pompeo is the U.S. Representative for Kansas’s 4th congressional district and a member of the Tea Party movement. Pompeo has criticized the Obama administration for being less-than-firm with the military and for his stances on climate change. He is a lifetime supporter of the NRA, which happens to be one of his endorsers, and also supports the National Security’s Agency many surveillance programs.
Pompeo advocates for conservative stances in international security, criticizing Muslims who do not denounce acts of extremism as accomplices. He is also against the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and even visited the prison in 2013 and the hunger strike enacted by the inmates.
Mike Flynn served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and has worked extensively in intelligence efforts performed in Afghanistan. Flynn has a long career in military operational work, including armed combat and high-profile intelligence operations. A modern theorist of war, he has published several articles in military research journals. He was considered as a potential running mate, but just like Sessions, he was beaten by conservative Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
Flynn was nominated as the 18th director of the Defense Intelligence Agency by Barack Obama, taking office in 2012. He released a paper envisioning how the Defense Intelligence Agency must face the future of national security in the current century, mainly by “innovation of the whole workforce.” His administration ended with him quitting abruptly from the agency in 2014 due to discrepancies with superiors after claiming that the United States was wholeheartedly exposed to threats of Islamic terrorism.
Flynn founded a lobbying firm and has been known to work with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It is known that Flynn himself has been present in meetings where his firm, the Flynn Intel Group, has advised Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime.
“If I return to government service, my relationship with my company will be severed, in accordance with the policy announced by President-elect Trump,” read a statement emitted on his behalf by the Flynn Intel Group.
Flynn’s presence in real international affairs has been heavily criticized, even when Trump himself has announced that one of his first measures will be to ban lobbyists that have recently worked with the government.
The conservative intelligence expert has criticized Obama for his “empty speeches and misguided rhetoric,” which has reportedly led the world to lose respect for America. He also has called for more clarity on the government’s affairs with ISIS and Osama bin Laden, calling out the political correctness in failing to address Islamic terrorism as such. Flynn was an opponent to Clinton’s campaign, demanding her to be imprisoned and to quit the presidential race.
Although Flynn is a registered Democrat, he has entered the Republican eye of view due to his conservative stances which go behind politics. He even has called himself a “pro-life Democrat,” supporting women’s right to abort.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, already announced that Trump will be provided with the President’s Daily Brief materials, which contain the most delicate pieces of intelligence information, even beyond security filings that Trump received while he was chosen as the Republican nominee of the GOP.
Source: Reuters