Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who listened in on the infamous July 25 Ukraine call between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, knew precisely that Trump was selling out U.S. national security for his personal political gain and did nothing. The career professionals and seasoned diplomats underneath Pompeo at the State Department, however, have provided the fodder that has almost certainly nourished the seeds of Trump's impeachment, if not necessarily his removal from office.
And although Pompeo turned a blind eye to the offenses he was witnessing firsthand, the fact that his underlings refused to do the same has really ticked off Trump, according to NBC News. Never mind that Trump only has himself to blame for his corrupt actions: He has reportedly been ranting about Pompeo's inability to stem the flow of information from his employees. In particular, Trump has focused on Ambassador Bill Taylor, whom Pompeo personally recruited to take the place of ousted U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Of course, Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and his now-indicted co-conspirators Lev and Igor were responsible for pushing out Yovanovitch, a distinguished diplomat with decades of experience. But Trump being Trump, he was expecting Pompeo to hire some toady who knew nothing about diplomacy and would simply fall in line with Trump's shadow foreign policy.
Trump's rage at Pompeo’s uselessness reportedly boiled over during a lunch at the White House on Oct. 29. By then, a string of State Department officials had testified behind closed doors, including special envoy Kurt Volker, Ambassador Yovanovitch, Trump’s Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, Ambassador Taylor, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs George Kent. Volker resigned before giving testimony, but Kent, Sondland, Taylor, and Yovanovitch all remain at the State Department, which has essentially been under attack from the top down ever since Trump was elected. NBC reports that Taylor was greeted by an audience of State Department well-wishers when he dined at the agency cafeteria after providing testimony. One gets the sense that the agency's career professionals feel like they are finally getting a chance to fight back after the onslaught they've endured for the better part of three years.
Now Pompeo, once dubbed the "Trump whisperer," is on the outs with Trump. And on the other side, he's getting the squeeze from the employees he has refused to stand up for even as Trump has maligned people like Yovanovitch and Taylor. Pompeo was notably absent from pictures of Trump huddling with his national security team during the military mission that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Though Trump and Pompeo have continued their Wednesday lunches throughout the impeachment inquiry, Pompeo appears to have lost considerable clout and is said to feel "under siege."
Couldn't be happening to a nicer guy. Pompeo figured he could just build his resume while enabling Trump to sell out the country and walk away unscathed. Not so fast. Now Trump is shooting daggers at him even as he sinks further and further into Trump's impeachment scandal.