Photo: Screenshot/Donald J. Trump for President Videostream in June 2015
Reflecting his policy priorities, President-elect Donald Trump’s has given some shape to his national security team as he named loyal supporters to some key positions.
The appointments and nominations evoked a mixed reaction, with Trump appreciating expertise of his picks and critics questioning their ability to work across the divide.
Trump has offered former military intelligence chief Michael Flynn the position of National Security Adviser and according to ABC News the former general, who has strong views on dealing with militancy, has accepted the key position.
In a series of statements before the election, and in a book published in August, General Flynn “radical Islamic terrorism,” as singular overarching threat to the United States.
The position does not require Senate confirmation.
The president-elect has nominated Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman as CIA Chief.
Pompeo has been a strong critic of the Obama Administration’s policies, Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi attacks and Obama’s support for rebels fighting Assad’s regime in Syria.
According to experts, Pompeo has shown a keen understanding of national security issues.
He studied at the U.S. military academy at West Point, served as a cavalry officer in the Army and earned a law degree from Harvard.
According to NBC, many CIA insiders were “breathing a sigh of relief over Pompeo’s ascension Friday, calling him the most favorable option among the many names the Trump team recently had floated.”
The nomination for the key position for Attrorney General has gone to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
Trump hailed the senator, calling Sessions “a world-class legal mind,” and Republican colleagues also expressed approval.
Sessions, 69, has been involved in a spate of controversies and was denied a federal judgeship in 1986. His colleagues said he had courted racist views and once joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying he thought they were “okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.”
Trump has already selected White House chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who is former chairman of Breitbart News, an alt-right news site which has grown into a platform for white nationalist movement.
