Mike Pompeo (born Michael Richard Pompeo) was appointed United States Secretary of State on March 13, 2018, by U.S. President Donald Trump. He assumed the position following the dismissal of former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Mike Pompeo was born on December 30, 1963, in Orange, California, to Dorothy and Wayne Pompeo. He graduated from Los Amigos High School in 1982. He completed his undergraduate education at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1986 and later earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1994.

After graduating from West Point, Mike Pompeo served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army between 1986 and 1991. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. During this period, he served as a U.S. cavalry officer patrolling the Iron Curtain in Europe prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Following his graduation from law school in 1994, Mike Pompeo worked as an attorney at the law firm Williams & Connolly. In 1998, together with fellow West Point graduates, he founded Thayer Aerospace and Private Security, a company that received a 2 percent investment from Koch Industries. In 2006, he sold his stake in Thayer, which later became Nex-Tech Aerospace, and subsequently became president of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment company partnered with Koch Industries.

Mike Pompeo served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Kansas from January 3, 2011, to January 23, 2017.

After the presidential election of November 8, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump announced on November 18, 2016, that he would nominate Mike Pompeo as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Following Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017, Pompeo was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 23, 2017, by a vote of 66–32 and officially assumed office as CIA Director.

As CIA Director, Mike Pompeo made his first official overseas visits on February 9, 2017, traveling to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In Turkey, he met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss policies related to Syria and ISIS. He later traveled to Riyadh, where he awarded Saudi Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef the George Tenet Medal in recognition of contributions to counterterrorism and peace.

In a speech delivered in February 2016, Mike Pompeo stated that former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden should be extradited from Russia and executed, describing him as a traitor. Snowden had left the United States on June 23, 2013, and received political asylum in Moscow after being charged with espionage and theft of government property.

Mike Pompeo has been a vocal opponent of the Iran nuclear agreement. Following the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016, he described Turkey as a “totalitarian Islamist dictatorship” in a tweet posted the following day, stating that the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government was no more democratic than the Iranian regime. He later deleted the tweet and closed his Twitter account.

In a 2017 speech, Mike Pompeo characterized WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a hostile state actor, a narcissist, a fraud, and a coward.

On March 13, 2018, President Donald Trump removed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson from office and appointed Mike Pompeo as his successor. Following Pompeo’s transition, Gina Haspel was appointed Director of the CIA, becoming the first woman in United States history to hold that position.

Mike Pompeo is married to Susan Pompeo. The couple has one son, Nicholas Pompeo, born in 1992.

Source: Biyografiler.com