Mike Pompeo throws up his hands
Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine scandal henchmen have just been arrested, and all signs point to Rudy being next – even as Donald Trump waffles between distancing himself from Rudy and trying to find a way to keep Rudy in the fold. Trump’s muddled approach toward Giuliani has left his complicit underlings without a clue what they’re supposed to do either.
Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is knee deep in the Ukraine scandal and will likely end up indicted after Trump is gone, doesn’t seem to know what he’s supposed to say or do at this point. The media wants answers from Pompeo about whether he met with Rudy Giuliani during his Warsaw trip earlier this year, but Pompeo is refusing to answer the question. Well that’s not going to work.
The Trump regime’s strategy either has to be “Rudy wasn’t doing anything wrong, so heck yeah, we were giving him his marching orders all the way” or it has to be “We don’t know what Rudy was doing, but whatever it was, he was doing it all on this own.” The strategy can’t be “I’m not going to tell you whether I was working with Rudy,” because that just makes you look as guilty as can be.
Mike Pompeo’s refusal to answer a basic question about Rudy Giuliani is a sign that Donald Trump isn’t giving his people any guidance on how to deal with the Rudy problem. Rudy’s impending arrest makes him radioactive, meaning Trump and his people surely want to run away from him. But because Rudy knows where all the Trump regime bodies are buried, they can’t give Rudy the impression that he’s being scapegoated. So they end up saying nothing, and looking guilty. As is always the case with Donald Trump, the lack of leadership is coming from the top.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report