Team Trump expands search for Secretary of State

“It is true that he's broadened the search, and the secretary of state is an incredibly important position for any president to fill,” said Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s election campaign manager, speaking to reporters on Sunday.

“He's very fortunate to have interest among serious men and women. Who knows how many finalists there will be … It’s a big decision, and nobody should rush through it,” reported The Washington Post.

Four known candidates

The four candidates initially identified by Trump’s advisory team consisted of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and retired military officer David H. Petraeus, who in 2015, pleaded guilty to charges of mishandling classified information he also shared with his mistress. 

Of the four candidates, Corker is arguably the least controversial but the Foreign Relations Committee chair has said he does not expect to gain office.

During Trump’s election campaign Romney accused Trump of being a “phony” before a dramatic volte-face.

Guiliani threw his weight behind Trump during the billionaire mogul’s rise to the White House.

Guiliani threw his weight behind Trump during the billionaire mogul’s rise to the White House.

But he remains a polarising figure and questions have been asked about the suitability of the former New York mayor due to business dealings that have seen him work with Qatar’s state oil company — a potential “conflict of interests” according to some commentators.

He has also received payments for speeches at events held by the outlawed Iranian leftist group Mujahidin e-Khalq, that until 2012 was on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organisations.  

Giuliani, who was New York mayor at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001, has said that he will make fighting “Islamic terrorism” a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

Controversial baggage

Petraeus is a decorated military veteran with considerable experience in the Middle East having served as a senior military official in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. 

His views of Middle Eastern socio-political realities are arguably slightly more nuanced than the firebrand Giuliani, who has a tendency towards hyperbole. 

Speaking in July, Giuliani slammed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s stance on permitting the entry of some Syrian refugees to the US stating that those accepted would “come here and kill us.”

Commenting on his misdemeanour in an interview with ABC on Sunday, Petraeus acknowledged that he had made a grave mistake.

Later, Giuliani defended his comments against accusations of Islamophobia stating that he was opposed to “Islamic extremist terrorism” and not “all of Islam”, stating “You know who you are! And we’re coming to get you!”

For his part, speaking on realities in the Middle East following the emergence of the Islamic State group earlier this year, Petraeus stated that they existed in the region a “kaleidoscope of competing interests, not just between Shias and Sunnis, but between Iranians and Saudis, Persians and Arabs, Kurds and Arabs, competing tribal leaders and a number of smaller elements.” 

The former CIA chief has also pointed to internal rivalries between military forces, and their various political backers, currently participating in assaults on IS-held Mosul, potentially degenerating into conflict when the battle for Mosul is complete.

However Petraeus' misdemeanour charge remains a major liability with reports earlier this week pointing out that he is currently not permitted to travel outside “the Western District of North Carolina” without prior permission from his probation officer. 

Commenting on his misdemeanour in an interview with ABC on Sunday, Petraeus acknowledged that he had made a grave mistake.

He said that the Trump team would “have to factor that in and also obviously 38½ years of otherwise fairly, in some cases, unique service to our country in uniform and then at the CIA and then some four years or so in the business community.”

It remains unclear which other individuals the Trump team has earmarked as potential candidates for the vacant Secretary of State role.