SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Washington: The US Senate has confirmed former Republican congressman David Brat to become ambassador to Australia, clearing the way for him to fill the diplomatic post that has sat empty for nearly two years.
Brat was part of a block of 74 nominations, including judicial and diplomatic postings, approved on Friday afternoon (US time) ahead of the long summer recess. Trump nominated him for the role in April.
It means he can arrive in Canberra ahead of the 75th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the US, which will be commemorated on September 1.
In the US, Brat is best known as the Tea Party insurgent who ousted sitting House of Representatives speaker Eric Cantor in a Republican primary in 2014, just before the rise of Trump.
The New York Times called it “one of the most stunning primary election upsets in congressional history”. Cantor had been a seven-term congressman, and Brat beat him on the right.
He lost the Virginia seat to Democrat Abigail Spanberger in 2018, and returned to academia, becoming senior vice president of business relations at a private evangelical college, Liberty University.
Brat has also been a regular guest and fill-in host on Steve Bannon’s influential MAGA podcast War Room.
More to come
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
