Key Democratic senator to vote against Pompeo for secretary of state

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By Patricia Zengerle

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on Wednesday he would oppose President Donald Trump’s nomination of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to be secretary of state, in a blow to the nomination.

In a speech to a Washington think tank, Menendez criticized the Trump administration, and Pompeo in particular, for lacking a strategic vision across the foreign policy spectrum.

“I believe our nation’s top diplomat must be forthright, and more critically his past sentiments did not reflect our nation’s values and are not acceptable for our nation’s top diplomat,” Menendez said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Which is why … I’ll be casting a ‘no’ vote for Director Pompeo to be our secretary of state,” he said.

Pompeo, the CIA director, did not tell him about his recently disclosed visit to North Korea even though they were discussing the topic during a meeting, Menendez said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)