Thread by @Headsnipe011

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo At a Press Availability

@drawandstrike @catesduane @rising_serpent @almostjingo @tracybeanz @CarrollQuigley1 @dbongino

#JustTheRealNews #CoffeeOrTruth
justtherealnews.com/2019/09/26/sec…

QUESTION:  Well, the President’s lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, has said that the State Department instructed him to get involved with Ukraine, to reach out to President Zelensky and his aides.  Is that correct?  And if so, what exactly was he told to do by the State Department, by whom?

And just more broadly, the whistleblower complaint does not appear to suggest any allegation of impropriety from people in the State Department.

Is that correct?  Are you confident that none of your staff – that you or none or your staff did anything improper in this whole situation?  Thank you.

SECRETARY POMPEO: So Matt, I haven’t had a chance to actually read the whistleblower complaint yet. I read the first couple of paragraphs & then got busy today. But I’ll ultimately get a chance to see it. If I understand it right, it’s from someone who had secondhand knowledge.

But here’s what I’ll say this morning about the engagement of the State Department.

To the best of my knowledge, so from what I’ve seen so far, each of the actions that were undertaken by State Department officials was entirely appropriate and consistent with the objective that we’ve had certainly since this new government has come into office.

We have tried to use this opportunity to create a better relationship between the United States and Ukraine, to build on the opportunities, to tighten our relationship, to help end corruption in Ukraine.  This was what President Zelensky ran on.

We’re hopeful that we can help him execute and achieve that.  It’d be a good thing for the Ukraine; it’d be a good thing for Europe.  It would push back against Russia in important ways as well if we could achieve that objective.

And the State Department has been working tirelessly to try and achieve that objective.  And a long way to go, a lot of work yet to do, but everything I’ve seen that our team has tried to do has been aimed squarely at that foreign policy goal.

***I jumped ahead for "current events." @SecPompeo started with this:***

Today, I’m announcing that the United States has concluded that the Assad regime used chlorine as a chemical weapon on May 19th in an attack at Latakia province, Syria.

This attack was part of the Assad regime’s ongoing violent campaign in Idlib, which has killed more than 1,000 innocent Syrians and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

. . .

As part of our maximum pressure campaign, today the United States Department of Treasury designated Russian entities for supporting Assad’s brutal war machine and facilitating the shipments of jet fuel to Russian military forces in Syria.

. . .

Finally, the Trump administration never forgets about Americans wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad.  Among the more than 100,000 people who have been detained or disappeared in Assad’s prisons is American journalist Austin Tice.

He has now spent seven years in captivity.  He is just one of a number of American citizens held in Syria, and we call upon the Syrian regime to release them all.

We also urge the regime to free all wrongfully detained Syrians, the vast majority of whom are civilians, including many women and children.