Mike Pompeo’s top State Department adviser sells him out
Last night Palmer Report pointed out that Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had become so spun around about what he was supposed to be saying and doing in the whistleblower scandal, he couldn’t even answer a simple question about whether or not he’d met with Rudy Giuliani. Now the increasingly beleaguered Pompeo has another problem.
Last Thursday, Mike Pompeo’s senior State Department adviser Michael McKinley resigned in protest of Pompeo’s treatment of the would-be witnesses in the House impeachment inquiry. Now it turns out McKinley has decided to become a witness himself. This evening NBC News reported that McKinley has agreed to testify about the actions of Pompeo and Trump. Why does this matter?
Michael McKinley will be the highest ranking member of the Trump regime to date to give cooperative testimony to the House impeachment inquiry. This is important, because it gives added heft and credibility to what the House is doing, in the eyes of the average American watching this all play out at home. In addition, McKinley has been in prime position to observe what Pompeo has been saying and doing about the Ukraine scandal all along, because McKinley answered directly to Pompeo.
What we’ll we watching for: will McKinley’s testimony be what finally breaks Mike Pompeo? There are two ways to take Pompeo down. The first is if McKinley’s testimony turns him into such a liability, Donald Trump feels compelled to oust him. The second is if the testimony exposes Pompeo to such severe criminal liability, he concludes that he’d better start cooperating himself.
