1/I’ve obtained the letters that Sec. Mike Pompeo, Deputy Sec. Steve Biegun, etc. submitted to House investigators re: their probe of the firing of State Dept. inspector general Steve Linick. There’s some weird stuff. A few highlights:
2/Pompeo immediately slaps Eliot Engel re: his Dem primary crisis. The 2nd sentence of his 1st paragraph: “I hear you’ve been busy in your District, so let me get you up to speed on what’s been going on with your Committee.” He adds a footnote for an article on Engel’s prob.
3/Pompeo says 1 of his aides, Brian Bulatao, is willing to testify publicly on the Linick issue June 22-23. He then slaps Engel for letting his staff handle some meetings & calls so far. He says he regrets Engel has let his staff “take over” the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
4/Then there’s a 2nd letter from Pompeo to Engel. Pompeo denies he had any knowledge Linick was investigating him and his wife before he pushed POTUS to fire Linick. Insists his top aides never told him about it. Linick says he informed several of them. Why did they not tell him?
5/Pompeo says he wanted Linick gone because of his “failure to properly perform his duties over a series of many months.” He also claims Linick acted in a “strange and erratic” way over another IG’s probe in alleged leaks from his office. (The probe cleared Linick & his aides.)
6/Now this is where I think it gets extra weird. A third letter is in the batch. This one from Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun to Engel. So far, Biegun – who has a good rep among Dems & GOP – has largely avoided getting dragged into this. But no more…
7/Biegun notes Linick has said he told Biegun, Brian Bulatao, Lisa Kenna & John Sullivan – all top aides to Pompeo – that his office would be seeking documents as part of a probe into use of State resources by Pompeo & his wife, Susan. But Biegun says none of them told Pompeo...
8/Biegun: “We can confirm unequivocally that, to the extent that any one of us were made aware of any ‘investigation’ of this nature, none of us briefed Secretary Pompeo on, or otherwise discussed with him,...
9/ this purported ‘investigation’ at any time before the President removed Mr. Linick from his position.” Again, shouldn’t Pompeo be pissed that none of them told him? Unless there are other motives?
10/Biegun insists that Engel and his committee stop “perpetuating this false conclusion” that Pompeo knew of the investigations into him & his wife before pushing to oust Linick. So why did Pompeo do it? The alleged leak he supposedly was mad about happened 8 months prior.
11/The *best* part of the package sent to Engel, etc. was 4 pages titled “Three Things Democrats Won’t Tell You About Linick’s Testimony.” This doc pulls out extremely selective quotes from Linick’s testimony & elsewhere to paint a negative picture of the fired IG. Having read...
12/Linick’s testimony, I am comfortable saying that the 4 pages distort a great deal of what he said. But they do highlight some things that have flown under the radar due to the crush of information. For example…
13/Linick emailed drafts of a highly contentious IG report to his personal account several times. An element of this IG report was leaked to The Daily Beast several months ago. The 4 pages go nuts on this aspect. BUT what they don’t say is that another IG, from the Pentagon…
14/Looked into this & determined that Linick hadn’t violated rules. He was traveling & there are times he’s allowed to send himself a document. There was no evidence he’d used either his personal or work account to send the info to others, etc. etc.
15/Some points Pompeo & aides raise re: Linick are worth examining, but w/ context. Example: Pompeo & team suspect Linick’s office leaked to Daily Beast. But the IG had sent a draft of the report to State execs 2 wks before the DB article. So it was circulating beyond his office.
16/Another thing that hasn’t gotten attention it deserves. The IG report partly leaked to the DB covers a sensitive issue: alleged political retaliation against career staffers. The IG recommended a top Pompeo aide, Brian Hook, be disciplined for his role. stateoig.gov/system/files/e…
17/Hook has been furious with Linick over the report. Linick describes an angry encounter with Hook in his testimony. Hook also has powerful friends in the White House. And Pompeo has defended Hook & refused to penalize him. Did Hook play a role in Pompeo firing Linick?
18/But the Q I keep going back to: Why doesn’t Pompeo fire the top aides who say they didn’t tell him about the IG probe into him and his wife? Anyway, major tip of the hat to @APDiploWriter who got the letters, etc. first.
19/Eliot Engel has responded to Mike Pompeo and the final two paragraphs are …memorable: foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/0…
