Daily US Times: According to a whistleblower complaint made public in recent days, a State Department official raised concerns to the agency’s watchdog about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “questionable activities”.
An employee filed a complaint with the State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG). The employee said they “directly witnessed and/or heard numerous firsthand accounts” of the behavior.
When was the complaint filed with the OIG is not clear yet. Inspector General Steve Linick told lawmakers that his office was looking into five matters of potential wrongdoing at the State Department. Mr Linick was fired on Pompeo’s recommendation in mid-May.
It is unclear from the four-page document – which was heavily redacted – what specific concerns were raised by the whistleblower, they note that there were attempts “on several occasions to obtain clarifications from senior leadership in (the Executive Secretariat) and from the Office of the Legal Advisors,” but those who tried “were blocked from doing so.”
According to the whistleblower complaint, to their knowledge, there was no action taken to “resolve the issues” and “several” of the individuals whose names are redacted in the complaint “specifically directed subordinate staff to continue facilitating questionable activities after the concerns were raised.”
The complaint said the misconduct took place in Washington, DC, Florida, New York and overseas.
Watchdog group American Oversight obtained the complaint, which has sued “for any records of complaints filed by employees concerning the conduct of Mr Pompeo during his tenure as secretary of state or CIA director.”
The spokesperson for American Oversight, Clark Pettig, said the whistleblower complaint shows what kind of red flags were being raised about Pompeo’s conduct at the State Department.
He said Secretary Pompeo’s conduct has been deeply troubling for a long time from the outside and we can see the kind of red flags it was raising inside the State Department.
”Even with the heavy redactions, the details of this complaint are cause for concern as Secretary Pompeo continues to hold questionable, political events around the country,” he added.
The State Department did not make any comment on the purpose.
However, Linick told Republican and Democratic lawmakers and select staff from the House Oversight committees and House Foreign Affairs, and Democrats from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in early June that he didn’t believe there was any valid reason that would justify the decision to remove him.
Pompeo’s push to fire Mr Linick reportedly looking into his actions at the oldest US Cabinet agency refocused scrutiny of the top US diplomat’s transparency record and his activities at both abroad and home.
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