President-elect 'picks Sessions for attorney general, Pompeo for CIA'

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November 18, 2016 2:58 PM

Donald Trump shakes hands with retired United States Marine Corps general James Mattis after their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 19, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Jeff Sessions, a conservative senator who was one of his early backers in the race for the White House, to be attorney general, US media reported Friday.

And US Representative Mike Pompeo has been selected to be CIA director, news outlets said.

A member of the Senate since 1996, Sessions is known as an outspoken voice against illegal immigration, and in favor of reduced spending and a tough approach to fighting crime.

He was the first senator to endorse Trump during the campaign and is said to have become a close adviser to the real estate tycoon who has no experience in government.

But he is also dogged by racially charged comments he made in the 1980s while working as a prosecutor in Alabama, including allegations he referred to a black subordinate as "boy" and joked about the Ku Klux Klan.

Pompeo, from Kansas, co-authored a report that slammed Trump's defeated rival Hillary Clinton for her handling of the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya in which the US ambassador and three other Americans died.

It accused the administration, of which Clinton was then secretary of state, of misleading the public over the attack and failing to protect US personnel.

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