Washington, DC | www.adc.org | March 22, 2018 | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the nation’s largest Arab-American civil rights organizations, calls on the U.S. Senate to reject Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State. Pompeo’s long history of hostility toward Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans disqualifies him from serving as the nation’s top diplomat.
EMAIL YOUR SENATORS AND TELL THEM: VOTE NO ON POMPEO!
In 2013, Pompeo accused Muslim-Americans of being “potentially complicit” in the Boston Marathon bombing because of their accused failure to condemn terrorism. Numerous Arab-American and Muslim-American organizations condemned the attack.
In 2016, Pompeo told his constituents that “people who deeply believe that Islam is the way” are a “threat to America.” It’s hard to find a more blatantly racist statement than the aspersion that one’s commitment to their faith is a menace.
In 2016, Pompeo received the “highest honor” from the anti-Muslim group ACT for America, whose president Brigitte Gabriel spews McCarthyite lies that Muslims indoctrinated in “radical mosques” have “infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department” and that a “practicing Muslim … cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States.” Naturally, she called Pompeo a “steadfast ally.”
Pompeo has also spread the odious falsehood that Arabs and Muslims have established “organizations and networks here in the United States tied to radical Islam in deep and fundamental ways . . . in places like Coldwater, Kansas, and small towns all throughout America.” At the time, Pompeo sat on the House Committee on Intelligence; his failure to produce anything but slander betrays his mendacity.
The U.S. Senate should uphold the best of America’s traditions and reject Pompeo for Secretary of State.