Did The White House Leak CIA Director Pompeo's Secret Trip To North Korea?

Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) testifies before a Senate Intelligence hearing on his nomination to head the CIA on Capitol Hill in Washington January 12, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Louis Nelson and Eliana Johnson, Politico: White House hypes North Korea trip to boost Pompeo’s image

The CIA director is facing a narrow Senate confirmation vote to be Trump's next top diplomat, and supporters say the high-stakes trip proves he can handle the job.

The White House on Wednesday cast CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s meeting with North Korea’s leader as evidence of his qualification to be President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, putting a political spin on his act of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy.

Word of the trip, arranged to discuss an upcoming summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, leaked on Tuesday in the midst of the White House’s effort to ensure Pompeo’s confirmation as secretary of state. Trump has tapped Pompeo to replace the ousted Rex Tillerson, but his fate in a narrowly divided Senate is uncertain.

The revelation was timed to shore up Pompeo’s image as a diplomat capable of executing sensitive negotiations on the president’s behalf, according to a senior administration official—and to undermine Democratic efforts to portray him as a warmonger unsuited to lead the country’s diplomatic corps.

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WNU Editor: The first thing that struck me about yesterday's announcement on CIA Director Mike Pompeo traveling secretly to North Korea to meet Kim Jung-Un was how well they kept this secret. Unlike the beginning of the year when the intel community was leaking everything .... there have been no leaks for a long time, a testament to CIA Director Pompeo in cleaning up house and putting his own people in positions of power to insure that there will be no more leaks. The second thing that I then thought about was that this was a deliberate leak .... probably from President Trump himself .... to shore up the stature of CIA Director Mike Pompeo so that he can be easily approved by the Senate for the US Secretary of State post. Will this work .... I do not know. Pompeo has his opponents .... in both parties .... but this will probably help him with Democrats who may have been inclined to vote against him before this announcement.