Mike Pompeo throws a tantrum

| 3:09 pm EDT October 1, 2019
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been having a rough go of it this week. After Rudy Giuliani went on TV and revealed that Pompeo knew about his Ukraine antics all along, the White House admitted that Pompeo participated in Donald Trump’s fateful call with the president of Ukraine. It’s becoming clear that the Trump regime is setting up Pompeo as the fall guy.

The thing is, Mike Pompeo either hasn’t yet figured out that Trump is scapegoating him, or he’s hoping that if he goes even further down the rabbit hole, it’ll cause Trump to change his mind and save him. To that end, not only did Pompeo decide this morning to defy the House impeachment inquiry subpoena he received, he made a point of throwing a Trump-like tantrum about it. The thing is, none of it actually matters.

Pompeo posted a long and blustery letter this morning, asserting that not only will he not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry, he won’t allow any current State Department employees to cooperate either. In other words, he’s willing to face getting indicted for obstruction once Trump is ousted, and he’s demanding that his underlings do the same. But the impeachment inquiry is actually focused on the testimony of two people who no longer work for Pompeo.

Mike Pompeo can’t stop the already-fired U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, from testifying – and she’s reportedly planning to do so tomorrow. Nor can Pompeo stop the recently-resigned U.S. Envoy Kurt Volker from testifying – and he’s planning to do so on Thursday. So in reality, Pompeo is throwing a tantrum about nothing. For that matter, we expect at least some current State Department employees will defy him and testify anyway, because they don’t want to share a cell with him once Trump is ousted.