Who is Mike Pompeo: Belligerent to Pyongyang, would kill Snowden and ban abortions

Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, whom US President Donald Trump announced today as the new Secretary of State to replace Rex Tillerson, is considered one of the most belligerent voices regarding North Korea among Trump's closest associates.

Pompeo, 54, who regularly briefs Trump on intelligence matters, downplayed the scale of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, noting that Moscow has been trying to influence US elections for decades, according to Reuters.

In February, Pompeo defended the conversations he had with Russian intelligence chiefs that month at CIA headquarters, Tanjug recalls.

Like Trump, Pompeo is an outspoken critic of Iran and has called for the rejection of the 2015 deal that eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program, and in October said Iran was "ruthlessly racing for regional supremacy."

At the head of the CIA, Pompeo supported the US government in the thorough collection of data on the communications of Americans.

In an op-ed published in 2016, he called for collecting "data about data" about US telephone communications and combining that data with financial and lifestyle information to form a single database.

Before becoming head of the CIA in January, Pompeo was a conservative Republican member of the House of Representatives from Kansas.

Pompeo once said that Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) leaker who now lives in Russia, should be sentenced to death for what he did.

"He should be brought back from Russia, and I think the appropriate outcome would be the death penalty for putting my friends, my friends who are serving in the military today, at tremendous risk because of information that he stole and then turned over to foreign powers," Pompeo said. .

Pompeo, who is an evangelical Christian, is against abortion and even in cases of rape and incest, AP says, and would allow it only in case the mother's life is in danger. Pompeo also voted against Planned Parenthood, calling it "the largest commercial abortion dealer in the United States." He believes that the state must not finance the practice of abortion, reminds the Croatian Express.

By the way, Pompeo is a retired US Army officer, and graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and Harvard Law School, according to the British agency.

Trump announced today that the new secretary of state will be CIA chief Mike Pompeo, and that Gina Haspel will take his place.

"Mike Pompeo, the director of the CIA, will become our new secretary of state. He will do a fantastic job. Thanks to Rex Tillerson for his service. Gina Haspel will become the new director of the CIA and the first woman in that position. Congratulations to all," Trump wrote on Twitter.