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Committee unanimously approves Clapper nomination

The Senate Intelligence Committee approved the nomination of James Clapper to be the next director of national intelligence by a unanimous 15-0 vote Thursday afternoon. Committee ranking Republican Kit Bond, R-MO, who was one of the senators who had lingering concerns about Clapper, expressed guarded optimism after yesterday’s follow up hearing that Clapper will be ...

The Senate Intelligence Committee approved the nomination of James Clapper to be the next director of national intelligence by a unanimous 15-0 vote Thursday afternoon.

The Senate Intelligence Committee approved the nomination of James Clapper to be the next director of national intelligence by a unanimous 15-0 vote Thursday afternoon.

Committee ranking Republican Kit Bond, R-MO, who was one of the senators who had lingering concerns about Clapper, expressed guarded optimism after yesterday’s follow up hearing that Clapper will be the strong type of DNI that Congress is advocating.

"General Clapper has served our nation honorably for 46 years and I admire him, he has assured me that he does not intend to be a hood ornament but judging from recent history my yea vote is really a triumph of hope over experience," Bond said.

No full Senate vote on the nomination has yet been scheduled.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin

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