President Joe Biden has nominated former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, a prominent “Never Trump” Republican, as his choice for U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.
The White House revealed Flake’s nomination on Tuesday, with a bio:
Jeffry L. Flake is currently a Distinguished Fellow at Arizona State University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Sorensen Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership at Brigham Young University. He also serves on the Senior Advisory Committee at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Flake was a Member of Congress for 18 years, representing Arizona in the U.S. Senate (2013-2019) and the U.S. House of Representatives (2001-2013), where he served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. A frequent public speaker, he is also a former contributor for CNN and CBS News. Flake is a Director of Taylor Morrison, a home builder in Scottsdale, Arizona, and a former Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Early in his career, he was Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Namibia. He speaks Afrikaans. He earned a B.A. in International Relations, and an M.A. in Political Science, at Brigham Young University. He is a recipient of the Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage from the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Flake is being described in the establishment media as a “Republican” nominee, as if his nomination were a bipartisan gesture. However, Flake has distanced himself from most Republicans, saying “there is no future” for the GOP with Trump.
Flake is almost certain to be confirmed by the Senate, where he served for a term before retiring.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.