WASHINGTON – Less than three months after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was sworn in, his son Nick arrived to thank State Department officials for a private tour of his and his mother, Susan Pompeo, at the agency’s home museum. .
“I also want to strengthen my desire to help your mission in any way I can,” wrote Nick Pompeo. “We see this as a family effort, so if you think there’s a place I can add value to, don’t hesitate to reach out.”
He also had a question: could he or the software company for which he was the sales executive be involved in the state department’s plan for the upcoming “Data Hackathon” event? In the email, he asked for details about dates, times, volunteer opportunities and “how I or anyone in my company can help.”
The State Department said Pompeo’s company does not participate in an educational event hackathon focused on computer programming skills. But the request, which included hundreds of pages of emails obtained by NBC News, will shed light on how Pompeo often blurs ambiguities between official government business and domestic or personal matters.
Both Congress and the State Department’s Inspector General are investigating possible misuse of government resources by Mike Pompeo and his wife.
The emails show that Susan Pompeo regularly notices state department officials from her personal email address about everything from travel plans and rest restaurant rent reservations to elite Madison dinners, NBC News noted in May.
Many people schedule routine official events such as logistics and coordination with the secretary’s spouse in any administration. But other requests, such as seeking help to plan a multidisciplinary visit for a select group of young Kansas officials, appear to be less directly linked to furthering the State Department’s core mission.
It includes requests for the maintenance of a Pompeoz rental building at the Washington Washington-area military base, which appears to have passed Susan Pompeo through the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. The emails service show special agents to the Secretary of State who update Susan Pompeo on repairs to the HVAC system in 2018 and to the porch and stairs in 2019.
“Dryer hook not done. … I think you told me someone was coming to fix it?” Susan Pompeo said in a text message to a State Department official in September 2018, whose name has been changed. “Ma’am – I was told it was fixed. Let me answer,” the officer replied via email hours later.
To be sure, there are legitimate reasons why diplomatic security officials, in whose order the Secretary is protected, may be kept in a loop about workers who need to enter their home. But Pompeo’s unusual housing system, in which it rents out military accommodation, usually reserves an undisclosed amount for flag officers, has raised questions before.
A state department spokesman said on condition of anonymity that “diplomatic security establishes all protocols and specifications for protocols based on the level of threat.” “Mrs Pompeo has been instructed to contact diplomatic security before any members other than family members come to her home.”
All emails sent to state department officials or to NBC News were in response to a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act, which is still pending. NBC News requested emails last November regarding Susan Pompeo’s Gmail address.
F.O.I.A. for personal privacy. Citing exemptions, emails are heavily redacted. In the September 2019 email, with the subject line “5-day guest schedule”, there is not a single word in the entire email that sign-, f, “best.”
Stephen Gillers, who studies law and ethics at the New York University School of Law, said it was “stupid” that Susan Pompeo used personal email to run social aspects of the secretary’s role as a spouse, but that it did not appear to be a violation. Rules of ethics.
“There are definitely ‘optics’ issues here. It looks like Pompeo is using the fee to make the potential with others, possibly future supporters in the 2024 White House membership.” However, he said, “I don’t see them using financial fees for financial gain.”
Pompeo has defended his wife’s high-profile role in the State Department, describing her as a “force multiplier” despite concerns raised by US diplomats about the use of government resources and her frequent presence on official foreign trips. This week Susan Pompeo will visit the secretaries of India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives.
As a member of Congress in Kansas, Pompeo became one of the most powerful critics of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for using personal email for government business, she told CNN in 2015, “She was in a position that did not benefit from the State Department’s security system.”
Ahead of next week’s election, Pompeo tried to publish more of Clinton’s emails six years ago, using his perch as secretary, at the request of President Donald Trump.
On one occasion, however, in October 2018, when Pompeo’s office fees sent him an advance schedule including republican information – such as breakfast with CIA Director Gina Haspel, a secure phone call with the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and certain office fees and travel time. The address was emailed to the email, part of which is redistributed red and contains a sign indicating that it contains privately identifiable information.
When the public version of Pompeo’s schedule was released later that day, the only thing on it was a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Cyprus in the afternoon.
A spokesman for the department said in response to a query about the email that the state department employee who sent the email behaved properly and that we had no security concerns about the practice.
During Trump’s years as top diplomat, Pompeo nurtured his political ties with his home state, Kansas, through frequent visits and interviews with local radio stations – so much so that speculation began that he would run for Senate this year. And led the editorial board of The Kansas City Star, urging them to “quit his important day job and do it.”
Amid growing speculation about a possible Senate run in 2019, State Department staffers were shown working under the direction of Susan Pompo to organize parts for the Kansas Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization and their families and parts of a multi-day visit to Washington.
The Young Presidents Organization, or YPO, is an elite global networking club for wealthy CEOs under the age of 45. Pompeo and his wife are both former members. In a Senate questionnaire he submitted in December 2016 for confirmation as CIA director, Pompeo said he had been the group’s education chairman for more than 15 years.
YPO Visit emails are from March, April and June 2019. It includes a line on the topic “Couple Projects” in which Susan Pompeo placed a list of tasks for staff, labeled “YPO Kansas Family College.”
“Can you please send me an update on this project ASAP?” She asked.
The next day, the anonymous employee responded with an “overview / update” about the YPO visit. Guide: U.S. on Wednesday. Dinner at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the International Spy Museum on Thursday, and breakfast on Friday the 70th at the Travel and State Department.
The government official wrote, “Library of Congress confirms for congress tour group. Still working on details of breakdown in small tourist / small groups.”
Emails show that Friday’s breakfast was hosted in the neoclassical Thomas Jefferson State Reception Room, which was to include a high-ranking State Department official or human resource representative to talk about “internships and careers.” Guests were to be given “swagger buttons”, a reference to “re-changing the agency by Popio” swagger section. “Pompeo later Tweeted About the event.
A state department spokesman said the department did not pay for breakfast and disputed that employees plan a full visit for the YPO group.
Pompeo’s conduct as secretary has been under increasing scrutiny since May, when he fired Inspector General Steve Linick, the state’s independent supervisory inspector. It was later revealed that Linik had undergone several investigations into Pompeo and his involvial fees, which continued even after the expulsion of Linik under the category of Fispector General, or OIG, acting ning inspector general.
Eliot Angel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, DNY, said Pompeo was throwing stones at whether the state was using the department “as a personal travel agency or as a political research committee.”
“My said fee has recently confirmed that Mr Pompo is refusing to be interviewed by the OIG in an investigation into the misuse of resources by himself and his wife.” “I believe he is trying to run the clock and avoid investigators until he leaves office.” The state department and the inspector general’s office did not immediately comment on the allegations.
Tony Porter, the secretary-general’s adviser who also worked for him at the CIA and Congress, told the House in August that it was a key point of contact for Susan Pompeo in the state department. She revealed that her tasks include making dinner reservations and helping with Pompeos’ personal Christmas cards, but said she only takes “direction” from Susan Pompeo, “not assignments.”
“The work assigned to me belongs to the secretary,” Porter testified. “There’s a time that Mrs. Pompeo relays that makes me work.”
In an October October 2019 email received by NBC News, Susan Pompeo and State Department officials plan to visit Athens, Greece. Susan Pompeo joined her husband on an official diplomatic trip to Greece, Montenegro, northern Macedonia and the Holy See.
“Decision issue: would you like a jewelry museum, or an art museum with Mereva,” an email to Susan Pompeo ahead of the trip, the wife of Greek Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis.
These emails also show Pompeois converging with potential optics issues about any notion of using office fees to favor specially for politically connected people, including Madison Dinner, with Pompeo hosting Republican legislators, CEOs and Supreme Court judges. Grand evening paid by the taxpayer.
In March 2019, Susan Pompeo wrote a letter to an anonymous official in the secretary’s office saying that she had a long conversation “with Mike yesterday”, including “State Department Tours” and “VIP Tours” for guests at the Madison dinner. However the tour was halted for the public.
“Starting immediately, they should be called‘ private tours, ’” Susan Pompe wrote, highlighting the freaking of choice in bold. “All citizens are VIP / important.”
