Ukraine tactic par for course, Pompeo says
He calls inquiry bid typical; 2nd whistleblower reported
ATHENS, Greece — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday defended President Donald Trump’s approach to Ukraine, which is driving an impeachment inquiry in Congress, and called it typical of the transactional way countries deal with one another.
Pompeo said the focus from the media and commentators on Trump and Ukraine is “wrong” because it doesn’t “impact real people’s lives.”
“Instead they get caught up in some silly gotcha game,” he said, responding to a question from a Greek reporter after Pompeo delivered a speech on U.S.-Greece relations.
America’s top diplomat has backed the administration’s demand that Ukraine open inquiries into alleged corruption that could target former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and into possible interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He called it reasonable, responsible and necessary to target graft, ensure aid is spent properly, and protect America’s democracy.
Lawmakers have focused
an impeachment inquiry on Trump’s request in July that Ukraine investigate the Bidens. A whistleblower complaint said that Trump sought to use military assistance for Ukraine as leverage to push President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, a Democratic rival.
Supporters of the impeachment inquiry say the administration’s actions toward Ukraine raise the possibility that a president used the power of his office to get a foreign government to help him win re-election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., opened the formal inquiry last month, accusing the president of “betrayal of his oath of office,” betrayal of national security and betrayal of the integrity of American elections.
The New York Times reported that a second intelligence official who was alarmed by Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistleblower complaint and testify to Congress, citing two people briefed on the matter.
The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistleblower, one of the people said.
The inspector general, Michael Atkinson, briefed lawmakers privately Friday about how he substantiated the whistleblower’s account. It was not clear whether he told lawmakers that the second official is considering filing a complaint.
Because the second official has met with Atkinson’s office, it was unclear whether he needs to file a complaint to gain the legal protections offered to intelligence community whistleblowers. Witnesses who speak with inspectors general are protected by federal law that outlaws reprisals against officials who cooperate with an inspector general.
Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union ensnared in the impeachment inquiry, will give a deposition this weekto House committees, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
Sondland will meet in private Tuesday with the three panels — intelligence, foreign affairs and House oversight — spearheading the inquiry, according to a committee aide.
As part of their investigation, the committees subpoenaed the White House for documents on Friday, a step they had announced earlier in the week.
The official on Saturday confirmed the schedule on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. NBC News first reported Sondland’s planned appearance.
The ambassador met with Zelenskiy to give “advice” about how to “navigate” Trump’s demands, the whistleblower reported. And in text messages turned over to House investigators Thursday, Sondland insisted that Trump’s decision to withhold nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine was not a quid pro quo — as diplomat William Taylor had feared, according to the texts.
‘IT’S WIN-WIN’
Pompeo on Saturday strongly defended the administration’s campaign to get Ukraine’s president to agree to a corruption investigation in return for a trip to Washington and the release of military aid.
“We know exactly what we were doing there,” Pompeo said. “We were trying to create a situation where there wouldn’t be a corrupt government. We wanted to make sure that they didn’t interfere in our election in 2016. We wanted to make sure that if we underwrote Javelin missile systems, something that the previous administration refused to do, we wanted to make sure we were doing this with a government that was straight up and would use that money for the things that it said it would use that money for.”
Asked Saturday whether Greece or other U.S. allies could expect similar political pressure from Washington, Pompeo said that it was the normal way that governments deal with each other.
“You’re going to come under enormous political pressure, let me assure you,” he said. “This is what we do. We work together in a political environment to achieve what the Greek people want. And America tries to advance its interests around the world.”
“When I talk to your foreign minister he pressures me all the time,” Pompeo said. “It is totally appropriate. Nations do this. Nations work together. They say ‘Boy, goodness gracious if you can help me with X, we’ll help you achieve Y.’ This is what partnerships do. It’s win-win.”
In Trump’s July telephone call with Ukraine’s president, Trump referred to a discredited conspiracy theory that aims to cast doubt on Russia’s role in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee and alleges that Ukraine had spread disinformation during the U.S. election.
Pompeo also said the State Department had responded to a congressional subpoena for him to produce Ukraine-related documents. He did not say what that response was. He had faced a Friday deadline to hand over the documents, but he suggested that he had not and would instead move to comply with the subpoena at his own pace.
“We’ll work through that process,” said Pompeo, a former congressman who was relentless in pursuing investigations into the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, which occurred during President Barack Obama’s administration.
“I remember precisely once when I was on that side and we were looking for documents, I remember precisely how long it took for those documents to come across. … We’re going to be more responsive than the Obama administration was in the years that preceded this particular Congress.”
ROMNEY ATTACK
Separately, Trump on Saturday resumed his attacks on Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, calling the 2012 Republican presidential nominee a “pompous ass” and calling for the senator’s impeachment a day after Romney criticized Trump for asking foreign leaders to investigate a political opponent.
“Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!” Trump tweeted.
Trump continued, “Mitt Romney never knew how to win. He is a pompous ‘ass’ who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s!”
Hours later, Trump suggested, with no evidence, that Utah voters regretted their choice and that Romney should be impeached. Romney was elected with 62.6% of the vote in 2018.
“I’m hearing that the Great People of Utah are considering their vote for their Pompous Senator, Mitt Romney, to be a big mistake. I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do Nothing Democrats! #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY,” Trump tweeted.
A U.S. senator cannot be impeached. Instead, the Constitution gives the House or Senate the power to expel one of its own members by a twothirds vote.
After Trump suggested on the White House lawn Thursday that China investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, Romney denounced the president.
“When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated,” Romney tweeted on Friday. “By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling.”
Only one other Republican senator has criticized Trump’s behavior, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.
“Hold up: Americans don’t look to Chinese commies for the truth,” Sasse told the Omaha World-Herald. “If the Biden kid broke laws by selling his name to Beijing, that’s a matter for American courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps.”
In the same interview, Sasse said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was “running a partisan clown show in the House.”