1/I’m getting criticized for the Twitter thread below, with some folks saying I shouldn’t have tweeted out the program without first getting to the bottom of why Mike Pompeo wife was listed as his special assistant. I welcome the criticism, but want to explain my thinking.
2/Quick context: Critics feel what I did is unfair to the Pompeos because my tweets in which MSC says they were the ones who made the error will never get as many views as the original tweet. I should have waited, is what they say. As a reporter operating under Trump...
3/… this can be a vexing issue: When to wait and when to push the button. Here’s what was going through my head when someone flagged the program to me: First of all, it’s a public document was already shared with numerous influential people. It was already out there.
4/This was not a quiet tip I’d gotten about something Susan Pompeo may have said. It was not a classified document that could have endangered someone. It was just weird. Second, there’s the fact that Susan Pompeo’s role at State has often faced scrutiny....
5/And the Department has not been very helpful – at least not with me – in clarifying exactly what she does, why she travels with the Secretary at times, etc. There also were questions about what she did when her husband was at the CIA. See this story: cnn.com/2018/03/19/pol…
6/To be clear, State has in the past said she doesn’t have an official position or get paid. But I’ve asked for details on who’s covering her travel costs, etc. And I’ve gotten no answers. It’s also not clear who staffs Susan Pompeo when she travels, and that costs to taxpayers.
7/So, again, there’s a history. Then there’s another thing: The State Department, especially over the past six months, is highly unreliable in terms of responding to questions. Especially on anything Ukraine or impeachment related or personnel related. It has been radio silence.
8/They don’t even acknowledge receiving emails half the time. They just don’t. Maybe other reporters have more luck than I do, but I doubt it. We wrote about it: politico.com/news/2019/10/1…
9/And then when they do answer it’s often vague and not helpful. So I could have waited all day in the hopes that they’d get back to me, and it might never have happened. Then there’s the broader issue of ...
10/Whether I trust their answers. The fact is that under the Trump administration, reporters have often been misled. Recently, Customs and Border Patrol claimed there was no directive to profile people of Iranian descent at the borders. And then reporters found the directive.
11/What I will definitely do is report what State says, if and when it says anything. Which is what I did. First, I tweeted – once I got wind of the pool report, which I don’t have direct access to – that State was saying it was the Munich Security Conference team’s fault....
12/Then, when the conference team’s press guy FINALLY got back to me, saying it was indeed their fault, I tweeted that out, too. I tweeted these clarifications multiple times in different ways so more people could see them. BUT...
13/I do see my critics’ point. I do get where they’re coming from. This is an age where information and disinformation and misinformation are crazy and social media makes things nuttier. So I respect their view, though as I’ve made clear, I gave this some thought. In any case...
14/I’m happy to hear more feedback, mean or nice. I do think it says a lot that many of the people who are seeing State & the Munich conference’s explanations aren’t buying that it was just a mistake – it says a lot about the dearth of trust there is right now in Washington.
