Whistleblower complaint emerges showing internal concern over Pompeo courting Kansas

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American Oversight
@weareoversight
State Dept. officials were repeatedly asked to assist in organizing former Sec. of State Pompeo’s political events in Kansas as he was mulling a Senate run, report @mawilner & @BryanLowry3 at @McClatchy, citing records we obtained through FOIA litigation.

Whistleblower complaint emerges showing internal concern over Pompeo courting Kansas
‘Time and again, Secretary Pompeo appears to have put his own interests ahead of the nation’s,’ said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight.
mcclatchydc.com
11:59 AM · May 4, 2021

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article251155334.html

State Department employees were asked to prepare then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for political events in Kansas as he was flirting with a run for a U.S. Senate seat there in 2019, rankling government staff who saw the requests as ethics violations, according to a previously unreported whistleblower complaint and emails obtained by McClatchy.

The documents provide fresh insight into Pompeo politicking behind the scenes during a period when the secretary was engaged in a flurry of hushed donor meetings and controversial visits to Kansas.

Newly obtained emails from that period show the former secretary’s wife, Susan Pompeo, asking State Department staff for help organizing political events in their adopted home state, connecting with local companies and drawing a crowd to one of his events.

And a whistleblower complained to the State Department inspector general’s hotline in October 2019 that department staff were asked to prepare Pompeo for an event with BG Products, a Wichita automotive services and parts company. Aides produced talking points on Kansas’ oil drilling and production industry that had little to do with the business of state, according to the complaint.

Multiple State Department staff were tasked with the requests, the whistleblower said, claiming the activity posed a “conflict of interest” and amounted to “ethics violations.”

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[crickets]

1. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. nt