A rocky start

As Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's ranking Democrat, was making his opening remarks, the power went out, prompting everyone to relocate to a different room. Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the committee's chairman, assured NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell the outage was the result of a central power failure affecting parts of the Senate office building, and not some nefarious cause. Fellow Kansas Republicans, former Sen. Bob Dole and current Sen. Pat Roberts, introduced Pompeo to the committee.

Zeroing in on Russia

In his opening remarks, Pompeo took aim at Russia, saying that Moscow has "reasserted itself aggressively, invading and occupying Ukraine, threatening Europe and doing nothing to aid in the defeat of ISIS." He later said, "It's pretty clear about what took place here about Russia involvement in efforts to hack information and to have an impact on American democracy." The remarks put him at odds with the president-elect, who has repeatedly challenged the intelligence community's assessment that Russia was behind a hack on the Democratic National Committee.

Iran deal

A foreign policy hawk elected in the wave of 2010, Pompeo is known as a vociferous critic of the Iran nuclear deal and champion of aggressive surveillance programs. He was tapped by Trump to lead the CIA ten days after the election. Pompeo said Thursday that though he opposed the Iran nuclear agreement as a member a Congress, "If confirmed [as CIA director], my role will change." He vowed to continue to evaluate Iranian compliance with the agreement, which put limits on Iran's nuclear programs in exchange for lighter sanctions. Yet he cautioned: "The Iranians are professionals at cheating."

Torture techniques