NEW: @SecPompeo enabled Trump's hijacking of Ukraine policy. Pompeo has spread conspiracy theories & failed to defend veteran diplomats from Trump’s attacks. Now he faces political peril in the impeachment inquiry. Detailed story of crisis w/ @SangerNYT. nytimes.com/2019/11/04/us/…
Many career officials at State Department say morale is at an all-time low and that Pompeo has done more damage to the 75,000-person agency than Rex Tillerson, the oil executive appointed by Trump whom department employees reviled.
Pompeo's trips to Kansas, his adopted home state, have also come under scrutiny. He flew there 4 times this year, 3 on taxpayer-funded official trips. Many people say he'll run for Senate, and that the trips are a shadow campaign. Sen. Bob Menendez asks for an investigation.
"He has failed the men and women of the department in his most important responsibility — to support them in the deepest crisis the service has faced in memory,” said Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s top career official under President George W. Bush, now at Harvard.
Mike McKinley & Marie Yovanovitch — The transcripts of their testimonies have striking lines. McKinley said he personally asked Pompeo 3 times to support Yovanovitch, who was under attack from Trump. That undercuts Pompeo’s assertion that “not once” did McKinley mention this.
The State Dept. didn't reply to a list of nearly two dozen questions we sent 2 weeks ago for our story on Pompeo, Ukraine & impeachment. Pompeo often avoids answering Ukraine questions in TV interviews. See this Politico piece on reporters' frustrations. politico.com/news/2019/10/1…
