Tag: Mike Pompeo

Pompeo lashes out at ‘shameful’

The Hill logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out at an NPR reporter on Saturday and accused her of lying to him after reports emerged of a heated exchangebetween the two.

“NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record,” Pompeo said in a statement released by the State Department.

“It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency,” he continued, calling the incident “another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration.” Continue reading.

Pompeo says he ‘never heard’ about any efforts to surveil Yovanovitch

The Hill logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said he was not aware of any surveillance of Marie Yovanovitch during her time in Kyiv as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, his first public comments on allegations that associates of Rudy Giuliani surveilled the career diplomat as they pushed for her removal.

“I never heard about this at all,” Pompeo said in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt when asked if he was aware that Yovanovitch was being surveilled.

Pompeo said he was only aware of the suggestion that the ambassador was being followed after the release of text messages describing the effort, released this week by the House Intelligence Committee as part of evidence in the impeachment trial against President Trump.  Continue reading.

Pompeo under pressure over threats to Yovanovitch

The Hill logoPressure is building on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to reveal what he knew about any threats to the personal safety of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch following allegations that associates of Rudy Giuliani surveilled the career diplomat as they pushed for her removal.

The State Department on Thursday agreed to brief senators on what they knew of efforts to track the ambassador’s movements and what steps were taken to protect her. The move was in response to demands by congressional Democrats to launch investigations.

“I got a message from my staff director that they are talking about briefing us and at the highest levels,” Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN on Thursday.  Continue reading.

Capitol Hill ‘furious’ after Trump’s State Department abruptly cancelled briefing ‘required by law’: report

AlterNet logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo is receiving heat after the State Department stood-up Congress one day after damning text messages showed associates of Rudy Giuliani targeted an American ambassador, according to a new report.

“The State Department abruptly canceled a classified congressional briefing Wednesday that was supposed to focus on embassy security, a House aide said, infuriating Capitol Hill staffers seeking answers on alleged Iranian threats to U.S. missions overseas,” Politico reported Wednesday.

“The cancellation also coincides with documents suggesting that associates of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani put the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under surveillance,” Politico noted. Continue reading.

Former White House official drops the hammer on Mike Pompeo after ‘two-bit criminals’ stalked Ukraine ambassador

AlterNet logoAddressing a House document dump that provided more evidence in Donald Trump’s still-growing Ukraine scandal, a former White House official claimed on CNN that to all appearances White House foreign policy has been being conducted by “two-bit mobsters.”

“New Day” hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota skipped over Tuesday night’s Democratic debate to point to notes and texts from Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas that indicated that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was being stalked with hints of personal threats.

“These new text messages were provided to Congress by Giuliani’s foreign associate Lev Parnas,” host Camerota explained. “To dig up dirt on the Bidens and to take down Marie Yovanovitch. The materials include this letter to Ukraine’s president, and in it Giuliani requested a meeting indicating he is working with the U.S. president’s knowledge and consent. That this is the first where Giuliani links efforts to President Trump. There is also this note in Vienna that mentions to get Zelensky to announce an investigation of the Bidens.” Continue reading.

Trump’s Tsunami Of Lies About War

Donald Trump’s administration has been a fountain of lies from his first day in office. But the U.S. attack that killed a top Iranian commander promises to turn that fountain into a tsunami.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed the drone strike on the Baghdad airport was urgent because intelligence indicated Qassem Soleimani presented “imminent threats to American lives.” But Pompeo was curiously unwilling to supply evidence.

The New York Times reported, “According to one United States official, the new intelligence indicated ‘a normal Monday in the Middle East’ — Dec. 30 — and General Soleimani’s travels amounted to ‘business as usual.’” The Washington Post divulged that Pompeo had been pressing Trump to kill Soleimani for months. Continue reading.

Pompeo walks back comments that appeared to contradict Trump on embassy attacks

After Trump told rally about multiple embassies targeted, secretary of State says targets weren’t known

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried Friday to clean up comments from the night before  that appeared to contradict President Trump’s claim that the Iranian general he had killed was targeting multiple U.S. embassies.

Pompeo told reporters U.S. officials acted on “specific information on an imminent threat,” and that the “threat stream included attacks on U.S. embassies. … Full stop.”

American officials did not know “exactly which minute,” but he claimed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani was planning “broad, large-scale attacks” on American targets. Continue reading.

Pompeo defends intelligence behind Soleimani strike amid press grilling

The Hill logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday defended the decision to authorize a drone strike to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, saying intelligence suggested that he was plotting a “large-scale” attack that threatened U.S. embassies, among other American facilities.

Pressed by reporters at a press conference in the White House briefing room, Pompeo said that the Trump administration didn’t know precisely when or where the attack would occur, but insisted it was imminent.

“We had specific information on an imminent threat and the threat stream included attacks on U.S. embassies. Period, full stop,” Pompeo told reporters. Continue reading.

 

Conservative attorney explains why Trump and Pompeo’s justification for Soleimani killing should ‘concern every American’

AlterNet logoAlthough Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani was by no means the first adversary of the U.S. killed during a military operation, his death is inspiring a great deal of debate — even among blistering critics of the Iranian government. Conservative attorney/journalist Philip Rotner considers Soleimani’s death a troubling development in U.S. foreign policy, and he explains in a January 8 article for The Bulwark why the justification being offered by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should “concern every American.”

Founded by two anti-Trump conservatives, Charles Sykes and neocon Bill Kristol, in December 2018, The Bulwark is hardly a journal of pacifists and has a generally more hawkish perspective than, say, Antiwar.com (a decidedly isolationist/paleoconservative right-wing website known for its contributions from Patrick Buchanan, former Rep. Ron Paul and others). But Soleimani’s killing, Rotner stresses, is problematic in many respects.

“President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are justifying the targeted killing of the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, in terms that should concern every American,” Rotner explains. Continue reading.

Pompeo Upended Middle East by Pushing Trump to Kill Iranian General

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is struggling to manage the widening fallout from the drone strike on Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the loudest voice in the administration pushing President Trump to kill Iran’s most important general. This week, he is back in his role as the nation’s top diplomat, trying to contain the international crisis the general’s death created.

True to form, Mr. Pompeo is not backing down. “You saw, more tactically, just these last few days the president’s response when the Iranians made a bad decision to kill an American,” he told reporters at the State Department on Tuesday, referring to a deadly rocket attack in Iraq on Dec. 27 by an Iran-backed militia. “We hope they won’t make another bad decision just like that one.”

The strike against the Iranian general has affirmed Mr. Pompeo’s position as the second-most powerful official in the Trump administration, behind only the president himself. A hawk brimming with bravado and ambition, Mr. Pompeo is ostensibly the cabinet member who smooths America’s relations with the rest of the world. Continue reading.