May 17 (UPI) — Former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign, met with President Donald Trump Wednesday as one of four potential candidates to become the next FBI director.
Trump also talked to Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe and former top FBI official Richard McFeely, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.
The interviews came more than a week after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
Lieberman, Al Gore‘s running mate in the 2000 presidential election, has no experience as an FBI agent or as a federal judge or prosecutor unlike past FBI directors. The Democrat-turned-Independent was Connecticut’s attorney general before being elected to the Senate in 1988.
Keating, who served as a U.S. attorney and Justice Department official during the Reagan administration, worked as an FBI special agent before entering politics.
Lieberman told The Hartford Courant he was secretly considered for jobs under former President George W. Bush before he left the Senate in 2013.
Trump said he could make a “fast decision” on replacing Comey — possibly before he leaves Friday for Saudi Arabia, the start of his first overseas trip since taking office on Jan. 20.
Trump’s choice must win Senate confirmation amid the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s election hacking and the Trump campaign’s possible involvement.
On Wednesday, the department appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel for the investigation.
“I will avoid commenting on any of the potential nominees until I am assured that the special prosecutor has the resources, independence and unconditional mandate to pursue evidence wherever it leads,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday night.
