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Personal requests by the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan Pompeo during his 33-month tenure as the nation’s chief diplomat ran afoul of ethical rules in a new report by the senior watchdog for the Department of State.
WASHINGTON (CN) — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan misused department resources over 100 times, tapping a host of federal employees for errands unrelated to official duties and in violation of ethics rules, a State Department watchdog report found Friday.
From booking personal dinners or trips to a museum to requesting staffers mail off family Christmas cards or schedule nail salon appointments, in over a hundred instances the one-time Trump administration official instructed State Department employees to “carry out tasks of a personal nature to benefit him and Mrs. Pompeo,” the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General concluded.
Pompeo, the 26-page assessment states, even went so far as to hire and designate a political appointee to carry out his personal requests specifically.
The findings were compiled following an investigation by the OIG that started when a whistleblower complaint alleged State Department staff were often asked to undertake tasks divorced from their taxpayer-funded duties for the Pompeos.
Politico was first to report on the assessment Friday.
William Burck, Pompeo’s lawyer, said in a letter to acting inspector Diana Shaw the claims against the former secretary were “cherrypicked.”
“Rather than a fair, independent and impartial review of the facts and relevant rules, the Draft Report is replete with factual errors and incoherent and unjustified conclusions that betray the drafters’ apparent biases against Mr. Pompeo and his family,” Burck wrote on April 2 after the secretary had evaluated a copy of the report for himself.
The findings were meant to “twist innocent, routine and even praise-worthy behavior into something nefarious,” Burck wrote.
Pompeo argues his requests were common, ultimately falling into the category of small favors one friend might ask another.
For example, the former secretary should not be penalized, Burck wrote to Shaw early this month, for having an employee help “pick up and drop off Pompeo’s dog at a boarder when they traveled and god forbid, letting the dog out of the house when nature called. The same could be said for asking a staffer to make a dinner reservation at the Cheesecake Factory, the letter states.
The OIG report is little more than a political axe to grind for investigators Burck contends, pointing to former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick as the driving force behind the report’s allegations.
Linick was unceremoniously ousted while investigating the sale of arms by the Trump administration to Saudi Arabia.
There is no evidence Linick drummed up the report to antagonize or harass Pompeo.
“OIG notes that this review began when OIG received a whistleblower complaint regarding Secretary Pompeo’s conduct in 2019, long before he terminated former Inspector General Linick,” the report states. “Moreover, the review is largely based on documentary evidence, namely emails between Susan Pompeo and Department employees, regarding requests that no one is disputing were made.
“Finally, the report has been subject to OIG’s rigorous quality assurance processes, including multiple levels of review, a legal sufficiency review and independent fact-checking in accordance with OIG’s professional standards. Thus, any allegation of bias or political motivation is not borne out by the facts, which speak for themselves.”
“At no time did I, or my wife Susan, misuse taxpayer money or violate rules or ethical norms. Our actions were constantly reviewed by dozens of lawyers, and we made massive efforts, and did, comply with every requirement,” Pompeo said in a statement Friday evening. “This latest IG report is yet another attempt to slander me and worse, my wife by our own government. The report is filled with factual errors and out of context acts between my wife and her friend of over 30 years that have been twisted into lies meant to sully our good work for the people of America.” Line 6 sound cards & media devices driver download for windows.
© (Twitter) Michael Pompeo's tweets have the look of a political campaign. (Twitter)When Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo launched his unusual Twitter victory lap on New Year's Day, he promised he would be telling a story about American foreign policy that could not be read anywhere else.
Pompeo, part of a dwindling handful of Cabinet secretaries and senior officials determined to stick with President Trump to the bitter end, has posted scores of messages, boasting about what he claims are his great achievements in nearly three years as America’s top diplomat.
The Pompeo tweet-a-thon will surprise no one who has followed his tenure. He condemned journalists, hailed Trump's achievements and posted photographs of himself traveling the world. Download mat driver.
The tweets generated an intense amount of rebuttal, even ridicule, from Democrats, foreign policy experts and commentators. Pompeo is said to be considering a bid for president in 2024, and a careful review by The Times of his missives reveals as much about Pompeo's time as secretary of state as it does about the combative politician's ambitions:
Pompeo claimed to have Swagger, but nobody knows what that means:
https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1345067615568490496?s=20Putting aside the obvious question of how humility can be part of swagger, Pompeo began using the term when he took over the State Department in 2018.
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He promised to restore 'swagger' to the demoralized agency, but after an initial honeymoon, diplomats increasingly chafed at Pompeo's partisan leadership style and willingness to do Trump's bidding. It culminated when he refused to publicly defend the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who testified in Trump's first impeachment hearing.
Numerous career foreign service officers have quit, been forced into retirement or fired. They were often replaced by inexperienced political appointees. And the number of applicants for the service has plummeted, meaning the pool for future diplomats is shrinking.
Tweet Mike Pompeo
The nation's top diplomat said he stood up to dictators, but not really:
https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1346086762586767364In the Tweet above, Pompeo was probably referring to Cuba's Raul Castro, whom he shunned after an Obama-era rapprochement. However, the list of dictators the administration praised or cozied up to is long. They include Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Pompeo downplayed atrocious human rights abuses — including the gruesome murder of a journalist allegedly at the hands of the Saudi security service — in the interest of cementing arms deals and other priorities. He also helped open dialogue with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un. In the end, though, it was Kim who appears to have benefited most from his meetings with Pompeo and two with Trump. The autocrat received the international standing he craved — and kept the nuclear weapons that the administration hoped to destroy.
Pompeo embodied America First, though experts say the strategy will only hurt the U.S. in the end:
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 2, 2021
Mike Pompeo Senate Vote
The 'America First' strategy often meant America Alone. Neopost network & wireless cards driver download for windows. Traditional allies like Germany and Canada were ignored or insulted. Mexico and several Central American countries were essentially blackmailed, told they would suffer economic sanctions if they didn't cooperate with the administration to stop migration.
The strategy also led to U.S. decisions to withdraw from treaties and other international agreements as well as several United Nations agencies, such as the World Health Organization.
For a victory lap, Pompeo sure did spend a lot of time trashing his predecessors:
We exposed Cuba's slave trade in doctors. The last Administration congratulated Castro for exploiting Cuban doctors. pic.twitter.com/MI0RGLpHAH
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 4, 2021Even after four years in government, Pompeo continued with harsh attacks of former President Obama and his last secretary of State, John Kerry. Contrasting his actions with theirs seemed to be the way Pompeo measured his success.
That has included his policies in the Middle East, where the administration sided overtly with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. Pompeo reversed decades of norms by recognizing the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the Golan Heights, captured from Syria, as Israel territory. He declared that Jewish settlements in the West Bank were not illegal, contrary to the position taken by most countries, and became the first secretary of state to visit one. In one of his tweets, he uses the old biblical names of Judea and Samaria to refer to the West Bank, adopting the language of the settlers.
Pompeo is ambitious:
During his tenure, he courted Christian evangelicals — a huge Republican constituency — and delivered political speeches while on the State Department dime. Once a sharp Trump critic, the nation's top diplomat fully embraced his boss's bombast. Pompeo's brash persona, on full display in his final month of tweets, can best be seen as a calculated way to position himself as Trump’s heir in the 2024 GOP primaries.
In one of his final State Department tweets, he even flogged his private handle:
https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1349355524463054852This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.