Mike Pompeo says the State Department will cooperate with a congressional probe seeking the impeachment of Donald Trump – but he will not allow his employees to be coerced into leaking documents as part of a “silly gotcha game.”
Pompeo said on Saturday that his department had responded in writing to a congressional request for documents linked to the probe into whether US President Donald Trump tried to pressure Ukraine to investigate the son of a top political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
“We will obviously do all the things we are required to by law,” Pompeo said on Saturday. However, he insisted that there were “clearly politics” involved in the Democrats’ probe, and vowed to protect his colleagues from any improper tactics that might be used by lawmakers.
Pompeo noted that there had been congressional inquiries in the past that tried to contact State Department employees directly, in the hopes that they would provide documents and records.
“That’s harassment and I will never let that happen to my people,” he warned.
Later in the day, Pompeo was even more bristling when responding to yet another question on Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the “red flags” during his visit to Greece.
This is what’s wrong when the world doesn’t focus on the things that are right, the things that matter, the things that impact real people’s lives, and instead you get caught up in some silly gotcha game.
Democrats claim that a series of messages and phone calls involving Trump and various members of his administration prove that the president tried to extort political favors from Kiev. However, House Republicans in turn insist that testimony from former US special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, “directly undermines” the Democrats’ impeachment efforts.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-California) has so far refused to release a transcript of Volker’s testimony – a decision which some have interpreted as evidence that the Ukraine probe is another nothingburger similar to the now-debunked Russiagate.
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