Donald Trump just scapegoated Mike Pompeo
This afternoon we all learned that when Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo fired the State Department Inspector General, he wasn’t just investigating Pompeo for a dog walking scandal, he was investigating Pompeo for potentially illegal arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Now Trump is promptly throwing Pompeo under the bus over it.
Donald Trump is now insisting that he’d never even heard of the State Department Inspector General until Pompeo asked him to fire the guy. This is a big deal, because Trump and Pompeo committed a crime by firing this guy while he was investigating Pompeo – and now Trump is saying that he wasn’t even aware of the situation, and the whole thing was Pompeo’s idea. It get worse.
Mike Pompeo is now admitting that he did indeed ask Donald Trump to fire the IG, but Pompeo is insisting that he didn’t know the IG was investigating him. This is extraordinarily difficult to believe. But with Pompeo facing the prospect of prison time over this if Trump loses, it’s clear that Pompeo is now trying to set up a “reasonable doubt” defense for the jury.
For now, the big question is whether Donald Trump completes his scapegoating of Mike Pompeo by forcing him to resign. That may depend on just how much uglier the media coverage gets in this scandal. If the IG firing is still generating headlines by the end of the week, don’t be shocked if Pompeo is a goner. But if this scandal fades in favor of some other Trump scandal, Pompeo could survive.
