This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Vladimir Putin is attempting to destroy the US’s alliance with Europe, James Mattis, Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Pentagon, said during his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Donald Trump’s alleged ties with Russia overshadow Senate hearings Read more

“I think right now the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we [are dealing] with, with Mr Putin,” he told the Senate armed services committee. “We recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance.”

Mattis and Mike Pompeo, Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, both expressed concern over Russia’s growing assertiveness around the world in confirmation hearings which took place during a tumultuous week for the transition team.

Just 10 days before the inauguration, Washington has been rocked by allegations that Russia had aggressively sought to sway the election in Trump’s favor and had also gathered compromising material on the president-elect.

Trump has cast doubt on US intelligence assessments that Russia was responsible for political hacking before the vote. But addressing the intelligence committee, Pompeo stated unequivocally that he accepted the report released last Friday in which US spies concluded that Putin had meddled in the election.

The report “has an analytical product that is sound”, Pompeo testified at his confirmation hearing. “This was an aggressive action taken by the senior leadership in Russia.”



Pompeo also committed to “follow the facts wherever they lead” in terms of any CIA examination of Trump’s ties to the Russians.

Pompeo, a Kansas Republican congressman and former army officer, told the Senate intelligence committee that Russia had “reasserted itself aggressively” around the world and said he was and would be “clear-eyed” about Moscow.



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In his separate Senate hearing, Mattis, the recently retired Marine Corps general whom Trump has nominated as secretary of defense, said that Russia had “chosen to be a strategic competitor, an adversary in key areas”.

Mattis said he was “all for engagement” with the Russians, but he warned of an “increasing number of areas in which we will have to confront Russia”.

Pompeo hit out at Russia at practically every opportunity the panel afforded him, despite Trump’s stated interest in forging closer ties with Moscow. He said Russia’s goal in the election was to sow discord in the US and affirmed that Russia had intentionally targeted civilians in military attacks in Syria, which he said was “absolutely a violation of the law of war” – a contrast to the equivocal view offered on Wednesday by Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of state.

Contradicting Trump, Pompeo said Russia was “doing nothing to aid in the destruction and defeat of Isis”.

Notably absent from the open portion of Pompeo’s hearing – a classified, closed session was slated to follow – was any discussion of the CIA’s highly controversial drone strikes and counter-terrorism raids. Pompeo vaguely alluded to CIA counter-terrorism “beyond Isis and al-Qaida”, but he did not follow up, nor did senators press him to elaborate.



As a congressman, Pompeo suggested he supported CIA torture methods, but on Thursday he affirmed that any return to torture would require a change in the law, and he gave Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico a “full commitment” that the CIA would comply with current anti-torture laws. Despite Trump’s stated enthusiasm for waterboarding and other torture techniques, Pompeo said he did not expect Trump to seek a return to torture.

During a minimally contentious hearing, Pompeo declined to strongly back a 2016 Wall Street Journal op-ed he co-authored advocating a return to sweeping metadata surveillance. Pompeo said he had “no intention of seeking such changes” to a 2015 law, the USA Freedom Act, that significantly circumscribed bulk domestic phone records collection.

But in an exchange that displeased the Democratic civil libertarian senator Ron Wyden, Pompeo said intelligence officials would be “grossly negligent” if they did not examine social media posts for potential threats. Angus King, a Maine independent, cited old tweets from Pompeo suggesting enthusiasm for WikiLeaks during the publication of leaks from the Democratic National Committee.



“I have never believed WikiLeaks to be a credible source of information,” Pompeo said.

Meanwhile, Mattis forcefully defended the US role in Nato, signaling, reassuringly to the Baltic members of Nato, that he supported a permanent US military presence in the region as a deterrent to Russia.

Mattis was also pressed sharply on his views concerning the recent expansion of combat service to women.

“I have no plan to oppose women in any aspect of our military,” Mattis said, responding to a blunt question posed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, after reading several past statements expressing opposition. “I’m coming in with the understanding that I lead the Department of Defense, and if someone brings me a problem I will look at it. But I’m not coming in looking for problems.”

Gillibrand also asked Mattis if allowing gay and lesbian Americans to serve openly in the military “undermines” its lethality; Mattis did not answer directly.

“Frankly, I’ve never cared much about two consenting adults and who they go to bed with,” he said.

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Mattis will require a special waiver from Congress to serve since he has not been out of uniform for the requisite seven years. Senate Democrats expressed concerns that approving the waiver would set a precedent that undermined the constitutional principle of civilian control of the military, but voiced a willingness to make an exception.

“I am extremely concerned by the precedent that your assuming this office would set,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. “But if ever there were a case for a waiver of that principle, it is you at this moment in our history.”

The support for Mattis, a revered Marine general, was quickly evident in a 24-3 vote on the Senate panel for the waiver permitting his Pentagon stewardship. The three dissenters were all Democrats: Blumenthal, Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The House armed services committee also voted on the waiver, passing it 34-28, a closer vote that perhaps reflected the fact Mattis had been due to testify before them on Thursday, too, before, according to a congressional aide, the testimony was canceled by the Trump transition team.

Later on Thursday, the full Senate voted decisively to approve the waiver in a 81-17 vote. It will go to the full House on Friday.

Senate Democrats focused much of their questioning on trying to draw out key points of difference between Mattis and the president-elect.

Warren asked Mattis if he was willing to express his views on Russia “frankly and forcefully” to the future President Trump. Mattis said he was.

“I hope that that is right, because if you end up in this job, our national security may well depend in part on your willingness to voice your opinions even when others disagree and even when you are under pressure to remain silent,” Warren said. “We are counting on you.”

Several senators on the intelligence panel expressed concern about morale at the CIA amid Trump’s public denigration of US intelligence during the furor over Russian hacking. Pompeo showered the agency’s “world-class” workforce with praise and recounted times he had “seen them walk through fire” while he was a member of the House intelligence panel. He pledged to ensure their independence and influence with a Trump White House.

“I am confident the Central Intelligence Agency will play a role in this administration as it has for every previous administration,” he said.