Will try to stop Trump picks, Paul says

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that he would "do everything to stop" President Donald Trump's nominations of Mike Pompeo for secretary of state and Gina Haspel for CIA director, but conceded he might not succeed.

Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said on CBS' Face the Nation that he wants someone who's not "advocating for war," particularly against Iran and North Korea, rather than Pompeo, the current CIA director.

"He keeps appointing people around him who like the war with Iraq so much they're eager to start a war with Iran next," Paul said, noting that Trump has expressed opposition to the war in Iraq.

Trump named Pompeo, a former Republican representative from Kansas, to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The president fired Tillerson on Tuesday in a Twitter message.

On CNN, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that Paul's opposition makes him "an outlier" within the Republican Party.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican who, like Paul, ran for president in 2016, called Pompeo a "highly qualified person" to be secretary of state and suggested that he is better aligned with Trump's views about world affairs and diplomacy than Tillerson.

Pompeo is "close to the president," Graham said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. "He shares the president's worldview that North Korea is a dangerous place, and I think he can do an outstanding job to the world explaining President Trump's foreign policy."

Paul also objected to Haspel, who is linked to the torture of terrorism suspects in secret prisons in the years immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I don't think torture is what America's about," Paul said in one of three appearances on Sunday talk shows.

The senator also spoke out against Haspel in an editorial published online by Politico on Sunday, where he noted that recent reports that she engaged in the inappropriate waterboarding and torture of Abu Zubaida, an al-Qaida suspect held at a "black site" prison in Thailand in 2002, were inaccurate and have been retracted.

"Some details may be disputed, but it remains true that Haspel ran a secret center in Thailand where prisoners were tortured," he wrote. "There is no question that during her career, Haspel participated in and helped develop the program that our own government has labeled torture."

On CBS he conceded that he doesn't "have the power to stop her nomination" if she gets enough votes.

Graham dismissed concerns about Haspel's role in the torture of detainees, saying he will be satisfied if she expresses during her confirmation hearings an understanding that waterboarding is no longer an authorized interrogation technique.

"I think for her to acknowledge that misbehavior is no longer allowed ... she will have to adhere to the law as I believe it exists today, and that will be the test for me," Graham said.

But Paul has vowed to throw wrenches in the way of his GOP colleagues as they undergo the process of confirming Pompeo and Haspel -- and he doubled down on that promise, not excluding a filibuster option, although that ultimately wouldn't be successful unless he gets enough lawmakers to join him.

"It's just inconsistent with who we are as a people to have someone run our spy agency who is intimately involved with torture," Paul said in reference to Haspel.

Information for this article was contributed by Ben Brody and Mark Niquette of Bloomberg News; and by Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post.

A Section on 03/19/2018

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