The State Department just sold out Mike Pompeo
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was successful when he ordered his State Department not to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry’s request for documents relating to Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal. But now that a judge has ordered that the State Department turn over these documents to American Oversight as part of a FIOA request, it’s turned out to be a very different story.
When you defy a congressional request, at worst you’ll get dragged into a lengthy battle, thanks to relatively weak contempt of Congress powers. But if you defy a judge’s order, you risk getting arrested immediately for contempt of court. So when a judge ordered the State Department to turn over the Ukraine documents by midnight tonight, it’s not surprising that State Department officials did precisely that. Better to face Pompeo’s wrath than to get arrested.
American Oversight received the documents just moments ago, and has since turned around and published them online. The entire hundred-page treasure trove has been posted here, but American Oversight sums it up this way: “It’s clear why Mike Pompeo has refused to release this information to Congress. It reveals a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani’s smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador.”
What’s fascinating here is that because these documents have now been posted online for all to see, the House impeachment inquiry can (and certainly will) use this evidence in its next round of televised impeachment hearings. At this rate you have to wonder if Mike Pompeo will still be Secretary of State by the end of the weekend.
