Mike Pompeo's role in Trump's Ukraine scheme

On Wednesday, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, deeply implicated Pompeo in the whole saga, testifying that Pompeo fully understood the dimensions of the scheme that Sondland was implementing to pressure Ukraine into carrying out President Trump’s political bidding.

[...]

This peek into Pompeo’s mindset captures with unique clarity the contempt for basic governing and the rule of law that pervades much of this administration.

[...]

The reason this is particularly damning in Pompeo’s case is that the man whose official role is to implement the nation’s foreign policies through the State Department as “the president’s chief foreign affairs adviser” was himself actively involved in perverting those policies — by placing them at the disposal of the president’s corrupt personal and political ends.

[...]

In so doing, Pompeo appears to have assented to the use of the machinery of the State Department to help Trump solicit foreign interference in a U.S. election — and possibly even knew and approved of the use of taxpayer-funded military aid to a vulnerable ally to extort that political assistance on the president’s behalf.

  WaPo

"Possibly". Let me guess.

In so doing, Pompeo appears to have assented to the use of the machinery of the State Department to help Trump solicit foreign interference in a U.S. election — and possibly even knew and approved of the use of taxpayer-funded military aid to a vulnerable ally to extort that political assistance on the president’s behalf.

[...]

At first, Hill notes that she was upset with Sondland as the scheme developed, because Sondland appeared to be going rogue from U.S. policy toward Ukraine. Then she came to realize that in so doing, he was carrying out a very different mission from the government professionals.

[...]

[Sondland] said to me, “But I’m briefing the president. I’m briefing chief of staff Mulvaney. I’m briefing Secretary Pompeo. And I’ve talked to Ambassador Bolton. Who else do I have to deal with?”

[...]

We now know, of course, that this["domestic political errand”] occurred amid strong dissent from Bolton, but at the direct involvement of Mulvaney (who froze the military aid on Trump’s behalf) and Pompeo himself.

Pompeo’s private reaction to all of this, you’ll be startled to hear, is remarkably contemptuous of the most basic values that one usually associates with public service.

The New York Times has a deeply reported look at the extensive damage Pompeo’s role in this scheme has done at the State Department.

[...]

Mr. Pompeo has told associates that he believes the impeachment testimonies are partly aimed at forcing him to play a Washington game that would end with him turning on the president to save his own career. And he refuses to participate, Mr. Pompeo has said.

That is just awful. Pompeo has nothing but pure contempt for basic accountability in government and the separation of powers — he’s only able to view these workings as an effort to drive a wedge between him and the president.

The threat to his career he discerns is not the one posed by Trump’s profound corruption and the demands it has made on him, to which he has cheerfully assented. Rather, the real threat is the possibility that aggressive accountability and fact-finding by Congress — which is its institutional role — might make it impossible for him to continue maintaining total fealty to the president.

And ruin his chances of seeking a Senate seat from Kansas, which is being reported as his goal.

The struggle to get our heads around the magnitude of this scandal requires us to grapple with the degree to which large swaths of the government have been placed at the disposal of Trump’s corrupt political ends.

I've been thinking that for some time now. This scandal is deeper and wider than anything we've ever dealt with in this country. It's going to be a Herculean - if not impossible - task to wrap our heads around it. But we have to try. Or lose America.

P.S.  Remember when Pompeo was Trump's CIA director and met with Russia's top spy who was under US travel sanctions?  That was in February.  In March, Trump nominated him to be head of the State Department, and he was confirmed in April.  I don't know what that means, but it sure sounds like it could be more of the story.