Ousted State Department Inspector General Steve Linick testified that State Department officials tried to “bully” him away from his probe into an emergency declaration that cleared the way for an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, according to Democrats.
Standard Operating Procedure for the Trump maladministration.
Pompeo is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.
The advantages of being demonstrably horrible include:
(1) the next outrage is absorbed by the public with less horror
(2) no expectation of remediation
(3) the existence of a segment of the population which embraces the horror when it is cleverly marketed, as we have seen with Trump for the past five years
We’re going to need a national Truth and Reconciliation commission when this regime is over.
“Pompeo has confirmed that he submitted written responses for one of Linick’s investigations, but claimed that he didn’t know the scope of the probe, nor whether it was ongoing.”
I see. So I guess “Under Secretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao and acting State Department Legal Adviser Marik String urged the IG not to investigate the episode” on their own. Must have decided it wasn’t important enough to bring the boss into the loop.
Seriously, Pompeo’s habit of telling the most transparent of lies is remarkable. I think it shows his deep reliance on bullying tactics. “I’m the Secretary of State. I can lie in your face with impunity, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
I disagree with 3 because there is nothing “clever” about Trump the last 5 years.
Rather, his appeal has been based mostly on blatant White Nationalism.
The US is the world’s largest arms seller. It is astonishing that a Secretary of State cuts Congress out of the loop and gets personally involved in expediting deals, especially when the main consequence is killing the world’s poorest Arabs. About a quarter of a million Yemenis have died to date since 2015. They have experienced the largest cholera outbreak in the modern era, seen 14 million pushed to the edge of starvation, and now have a spiking COVID-19 infection rate. I understand Mike Pompeo is an evangelical Christian, so his ethical behavior pretty much is par for the course for those people.
The real question that is playing out is:
Is Mike Pompeo and other Trump accomplices above the law.
To my mind, one of the more amazing and perverse things about Trump is how he invariably recognizes, promotes, and rewards corrupt people. He’s like the malevolent shadow impersonation of a great manager.
I suspect that will depend on whether there is such a thing as “law” remaining after his term in office ends, always presuming it isn’t extended into a fascist dictatorship.
“acting State Department Legal Adviser Marik String”
There’s that word again.
Ousted State Department Inspector General Steve Linick testified that State Department officials tried to “bully” him away from his probe into an emergency declaration that cleared the way for an arms deal with Saudi Arabia
I believe that in Mar-A-Lago that is considered “par for the course.”
The keeper of the score cards is corrupt.
Poor Mikey the PsychoPomp…too late to try to be a Senator, too tied to Trump to ever be President, and they don’t even want him back at the CIA.
Maybe he can get a gig waxing MBS balls after all the favors he’s done for “the Kingdom”.
That’s so he can blackmail or extort them. They have to be as corrupt as he is so he can threaten them.
Of course nothing was wrong. Pompeo says so. That’s enough for Trumpists - at least until Pompeo starts bad mouthing Trump.
So far the answer is yes; bunch-backed Toad Bill Barr has been seeing to that.
More acting than the Royal Shakespeare Company.
when Trump belittled Political Correctness, Trump messaged: “you can now openly be the biggest assholes you want to be.”
Agreed.
Chump hasn’t grown into the presidency in any way at all. Almost impossible for somebody to get that job and not gain some empathy, some gravity, a grasp for how govt. works and the ramifications, etc. But he hasn’t, not one jot.
BUT, he and his lackeys have found EVERY weakness, every loophole, and for each outrage how to just blow through the hole that Republicans have enabled so there is no time for reaction, oversight, justice, or to satisfy The People’s Interest. So they have learned something. Chump has learned those things.
Frankly, many of us spotted this at the outset. He is a psychopath who never learned anything except exploiting weakness as the SOLE means of getting thru life.
