President-Elect Picks Rex Tillerson Over Mitt Romney, Others
President-elect Donald Trump will nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to serve as his secretary of state, multiple outlets including NBC News reported Saturday.Â
Trump selected Tillerson — who reportedly would be the first secretary of state in history without government experience — over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former CIA director David Petraeus and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently took himself out of the running for secretary of state.Â
The WSJ also noted that Tillerson has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tillerson has known Putin since he represented Exxon’s interests in Russia during President Boris Yeltsin’s regime.Â
“He has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger,†said John Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary during the Clinton administration.Â
At Exxon’s annual meeting in 2014, Tillerson spoke against sanctions against Russia.Â
“We always encourage the people who are making those decisions to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really harming with sanctions,†he said.
Trump’s selection of Tillerson comes in the wake of Friday’s bombshell report that the CIA has determined the Russian government intervened in the election to help Trump win.Â