Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse struggles to explain vote to confirm Trump's CIA chief as 1k protesters fill [View all]

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There is video at link also.


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Lee Fang ‏@lhfang 2h2 hours ago

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse struggles to explain vote to confirm Trump's CIA chief as 1k protesters fill his town hall

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Protesters Grill Democratic Senator About His Vote for Trump’s CIA Chief
Lee Fang

January 30 2017, 11:05 a.m.
Courtesy Sam Eilertsen

At a testy meeting with a crowd of constituents Sunday evening, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., became the latest Democratic senator to face a grassroots backlash for voting to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Whitehouse was one of 14 Democrats who voted last Monday to confirm Mike Pompeo, a fierce Trump ally who largely shares the president’s antagonism towards Muslims and personal privacy, and has strongly suggested that he supports bringing back intelligence gathering techniques that include torture.

Organizers said more than one thousand people showed up at the senator’s town hall, held inside a Providence middle school auditorium, to denounce Whitehouse’s support for Pompeo. The venue hit its capacity of 600 people, leading the overflow crowd to chant for the senator to come outside so they could hear his explanation for the vote.

“You are entitled to an explanation of why I have voted for some of the defense nominees and I will concede right off the bat that I may have been wrong,” Whitehouse told people in the auditorium. His talk was captured in video posted by activist filmmaker Sam Eilertsen and political blogger Steve Ahlquist.

Whitehouse eventually headed outside to talk to the crowd over a bullhorn.


“Why did I vote for Pompeo?” Whitehouse said. “I think that there are a lot of you who may disagree with me on this, and I appreciate it. Sometimes I feel pretty confident, sometimes you need to make a judgment call.”

“He’s a Rubio guy,” the senator continued, drowned out by a chorus of booing. “Sometimes you need to be in a position to say no if something really, really significant happens.”..................