kansascity | Vice President Mike Pence has been pushing for Kansas Gov. Sam
Brownback to land a job in President Donald Trump’s administration,
according to sources.
Brownback would not comment on a possible
appointment during his first public appearance since reports that he is
under consideration to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for
food and agriculture, a post that is based in Rome.
Pence, a
former congressman who served as governor of Indiana, is close to
Brownback and has been advocating to find him a job in the
administration, according to several people familiar with the situation
but not authorized to speak publicly as a matter of practice. Trump has
considered Brownback for several jobs but has not yet offered one.
Brownback
said in August that Trump’s decision to choose Pence as his running
mate had helped persuade him to support Trump’s candidacy despite his
initial reservations. Brownback went onto serve on Trump’s agricultural
and Catholic advisory committees.
“Mike, I know well,” Brownback
said in August. “He’s a good man. He’s a man of faith. I have confidence
in Gov. Pence, and you know elections are about choices in
policy...What he’s shown in the picking of Pence is a willingness to get
good people around him, and you’ve got to realize that’s the way a
nation is run.”
The two men have shared staffers over the years.
Brownback’s former chief of staff, David Kensinger, served as a
consultant on Pence’s 2012 gubernatorial campaign shortly after stepping
down from his post in the Brownback administration.
The Star’s
sources say that talks between Brownback and the Trump administration
are ongoing, but the governor refused to clarify the matter Thursday.
“I’m
just not going to make any comments about any of that. I’m glad to see
the administration off to a strong start on job creation and security
issues, which is the key things they ran on, but I’m not making comments
about it,” Brownback said Thursday after handing out a humanitarian
award to a Kansas physician.
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