The State Department Inspector General just took a blowtorch to Mike Pompeo [updated]
Last night multiple major news outlets reported that the State Department Inspector General was planning to urgently brief key House and Senate committees today in relation to the Trump-Ukraine scandal. Then some scattered reporting surfaced that the IG had documents proving that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to punish State Department employees who cooperated with the House impeachment inquiry, but it lacked widespread confirmation.
That brings us today. There still haven’t yet been any official announcements as to what was said in the meeting. But White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor of PBS News Hour is now confirming that the State Department Inspector General really did brief Congress today on Mike Pompeo’s retaliation against his own employees.
This is a big deal because it means House Democrats now have Mike Pompeo by the you-know-what. By his own admission this morning Pompeo participated in Donald Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine. Now he’s been caught actively seeking to not only cover up his own scandal by obstructing Congress, but by retaliating against his own employees.
This makes clear that Mike Pompeo will be criminally indicted once Donald Trump is gone. Pompeo is going to prison unless Trump pardons him. Considering the increasingly untenable nature of Trump’s presidency, and his increasingly erratic nature, Pompeo is making a fool’s bet if he counts on a pardon instead of cooperating with the impeachment inquiry, which could earn him some criminal leniency down the road. Update, 5:01pm: NBC News and one Democratic Congressman are now painting a very different picture of the meeting.
