Mike Pompeo Sworn in as First Italian American Secretary of State


Pompeo was named America's top diplomat Thursday by Italian American Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Italian American Mike Pompeo, a former CIA Director and U.S. Congressman, was sworn in as the nation’s 70th Secretary of State on Thursday by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Pompeo said Thursday he was “delighted to be secretary of state” and is “looking forward to serving the American people and getting to work right away,” according to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Alito, also an Italian American, “was proud to swear in the first Italian American secretary of state.”

Pompeo was born in Orange, California, the son of Dorothy and Wayne Pompeo. In 1982, Pompeo graduated from Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley, California.

In 1986, Pompeo graduated first in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point where he majored in engineering management.

From 1986 to 1991, Pompeo served in the U.S. Army as an Armor Branch Officer with the 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry in the 4th Infantry Division, reaching the rank of Captain.

In 1994, Pompeo received a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where he served as one of 78 editors of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and on the 81-member Board of Editors of the Harvard Law ReviewAfter graduating, he worked as a lawyer for the law firm Williams & Connolly in Washington, according to his Wikipedia page. 

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