Trump Taps Jeff Sessions for AG, Rep. Pompeo for CIA Chief

Donald Trump has reportedly made his picks for key Cabinet and administration roles, including Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Rep. Mike Pompeo for CIA director and retired Gen. Mike Flyn for national security adviser.

That’s according to Bloomberg News and the New York Times, newspapers that both reported Trump’s team was due to make a formal announcement in the coming hours.

From Bloomberg:

“President-elect Donald Trump has settled on Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general, according to two people familiar with the matter.

“It wasn’t immediately clear if Trump has formally offered the job to Sessions, a lawyer who was an early and ardent Trump backer, but the people familiar said Trump wants Sessions in the role.

“A Trump aide on Thursday night called Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a one-time Trump rival who was under serious consideration for the role, to tell him the job was instead going to Sessions, one of the people familiar said. The people asked not to be named because the decision has not yet been made public.”

Pompeo serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

From Breitbart:

“Rep. Mike Pompeo has been selected by Trump as CIA director and retired General Mike Flynn has been selected as his national security adviser.

“[Pompeo’s’s] popular with the national security hawks in Washington as he supports restoring the intelligence community’s ability to collect bulk metadata. He is also a firm opponent of the Iran Deal and served on the House special committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks.”

The New York Times offered a bit of background about Sessions, as well as confirmed his looming formal appointment to the attorney general spot.

The newspaper said:

“Mr. Sessions, a former prosecutor elected to the Senate in 1996, serves on the Judiciary Committee and has opposed immigration reform as well as bipartisan proposals to cut mandatory minimum prison sentences.”

That last was a pet project of President Obama, who made it his personal goal to issue mandatory jail sentence reductions to certain criminals currently behind bars.