WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out in anger Saturday at an NPR reporter who accused him of shouting expletives at her after she requested him in an interview about Ukraine. In a direct and private assault, America’s chief diplomat stated the journalist had “lied” to him and he known as her conduct “shameful.”
NPR stated it stood by Mary Louise Kelly’s reporting.
Pompeo claimed in an announcement that the incident was “one other instance of how unhinged the media has grow to be in its quest to harm” President Donald Trump and his administration. Pompeo, a former CIA director and Republican congressman from Kansas who’s one in every of Trump’s closest allies within the Cupboard, asserted, “It’s no marvel that the American folks mistrust many within the media after they so persistently show their agenda and their absence of integrity.”
It’s extraordinary for a secretary of state to make such a private assault on a journalist, however he’s following the lead of Trump, who has repeatedly derided what he calls “faux information” and ridiculed particular person reporters. In one of many extra memorable situations, Trump mocked a New York Occasions reporter with a bodily incapacity.
In Friday’s interview, Pompeo responded testily when Kelly requested him about Ukraine and particularly whether or not he defended or ought to have defended Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv whose ouster figured in Trump’s impeachment.
“I’ve defended each State Division official,” he stated. “We have constructed an awesome staff. The staff that works right here is doing superb work world wide … I’ve defended each single particular person on this staff. I’ve completed what’s proper for each single particular person on this staff.”
This has been a delicate level for Pompeo. As a Trump loyalist, he has been publicly silent because the president and his allies have disparaged the nonpartisan profession diplomats, together with Yovanovitch, who’ve testified within the impeachment hearings. These diplomats informed Congress that Trump risked undermining Ukraine, a vital U.S. ally, by pressuring for an investigation of Democrat Joe Biden, a Trump political rival.
Yovanovitch, who was seen by Trump allies as a roadblock to these efforts, was informed in Could to go away Ukraine and return to Washington instantly for her personal security. After paperwork launched this month from an affiliate of Trump’s private lawyer steered she was being watched and probably beneath menace, Pompeo took three days to deal with the matter and did so solely after coming beneath harsh criticism from lawmakers and present and former diplomats.
Pompeo was rebuked Saturday by 4 Democrats on the Senate International Relations Committee, who stated his “insulting and contemptuous feedback” had been beneath the workplace of the secretary of state.
“As an alternative of calling journalists ‘liars’ and insulting their intelligence after they ask you onerous questions you’ll quite not reply, your oath of workplace locations on you an obligation and obligation to interact respectfully and transparently,” the letter to Pompeo stated. It was signed by Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the highest Democrat on the committee, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
After the NPR interview, Kelly stated she was taken to Pompeo’s non-public lounge, the place he shouted at her “for about the identical period of time because the interview itself,” utilizing the “F-word” repeatedly. She stated he was not completely happy to have been questioned about Ukraine.
Pompeo, in his assertion, didn’t deny shouting at Kelly and didn’t apologize. As an alternative, he accused her of mendacity to him when establishing the interview, which he apparently anticipated can be restricted to questions on Iran, and for supposedly agreeing to not focus on the post-interview assembly.
Kelly stated Pompeo requested whether or not she thought People cared about Ukraine and if she may discover the nation on a map.
“I stated sure, and he known as out for aides to convey us a map of the world with no writing,” she stated in discussing the encounter on “All Issues Thought-about.” “I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He stated, ‘folks will hear about this.’”
Pompeo ended Saturday’s assertion by saying, “It’s price nothing that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.”
Nancy Barnes, NPR’s senior vice chairman of stories, stated in an announcement that “Kelly has at all times performed herself with the utmost integrity, and we stand behind this report.”
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