Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allegedly verbally harassed an NPR reporter for having the audacity to ask him about his management ... of the St
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allegedly verbally harassed an NPR reporter for having the audacity to ask him about his management … of the State Division.
Throughout a Friday interview with Pompeo on US coverage towards Iran, All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly requested the secretary of state whether or not he owed an apology to Marie Yovanovitch. Yovanovitch is the previous US ambassador to Ukraine who was subjected to a smear marketing campaign led by Rudy Giuliani and was unceremoniously faraway from her submit in April, bringing an abrupt finish to her 33-year profession as a international service officer.
Pompeo was not happy with the change in subject or the query. “You realize, I agreed to return in your present right now to speak about Iran,” Pompeo replied. “That’s what I intend to do.”
Kelly, noting that she’d confirmed with Pompeo’s workers that Ukraine can be a part of the interview, didn’t hand over — and Pompeo abruptly ended the interview.
However that’s not the place the story ends. Shortly after the interview aired, Kelly revealed what occurred after she turned off her recorder:
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly says the next occurred after the interview during which she requested some powerful inquiries to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. pic.twitter.com/cRTb71fZvX
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 24, 2020
The State Division didn’t instantly reply to Vox’s request for remark.
This isn’t the primary time Pompeo has lashed out at reporters for asking tough questions. However Pompeo’s fury this time appears straight associated to the rising controversy across the therapy of Yovanovitch.
Why the query about Marie Yovanovitch issues
Yovanovitch was faraway from her submit as ambassador in April 2019; later, it surfaced that in a July phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, President Donald Trump smeared the ambassador, describing her as “unhealthy information.” On the identical name, he intimated to Zelensky that “she’s going to undergo some issues.”
In November, Yovanovitch testified under oath within the Home impeachment inquiry that his feedback “gave the impression of a risk.”
Since then, new proof has emerged suggesting that associates of Rudy Giuliani, the president’s private lawyer, had Yovanovitch under surveillance in Ukraine.
In WhatsApp messages to indicted Giuliani affiliate Lev Parnas, Republican congressional candidate Robert F. Hyde not solely supplied particulars about Yovanovitch’s actions, however instructed Parnas, “If you need her out they should make contact with safety forces.”
Moreover, on Friday, ABC Information reported on the existence of a tape of the president ordering Yovanovitch’s firing. A voice that sounds like the president’s can be heard demanding that an aide “Eliminate her! Get her out tomorrow … Take her out.”
Following the discharge of Parnas’s WhatsApp messages by the Home Intelligence Committee as half of a bigger paperwork trove final week, Ukraine introduced that it had opened a criminal investigation into the purported surveillance of Yovanovitch.
Pompeo, in the meantime, cast doubt on the allegations in an interview with right-wing radio host Tony Katz, saying, “I think that a lot of what’s been reported will finally show improper.”
In the identical interview, Pompeo conceded that it was his “obligation as secretary of state” to open an investigation into claims that Yovanovitch had been surveilled.
Nonetheless, he failed to supply any protection of Yovanovitch, a veteran of the State Department who has served underneath each Republican and Democratic administrations.