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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is claiming that he and his spouse Susan have been “totally vindicated” after a watchdog investigation of her journey on his official journeys. However in accordance with the report, that is not what the Workplace of Inspector Normal discovered.
After a year-long probe, the OIG mentioned that the division lacked documentation that Susan Pompeo’s presence was correctly licensed on a lot of the journeys she’s made throughout Pompeo’s time as the highest U.S. diplomat.
The ultimate report’s launch was preempted by a State Department statement Thursday, saying, “There was no wrongdoing by the Secretary of State, his partner or household, or the State Division. The OIG wasted each time and taxpayer sources on this report.”
The preemptive strike escalates a battle Pompeo has waged in opposition to the OIG, which has been rocked by leadership changes and his frequent assaults. In Could, Pompeo had recommended that President Donald Trump fireplace Steve Linick, the profession official main the watchdog company, and since his ouster, there have been three completely different performing inspectors common.
Critics, notably Democratic lawmakers, have accused Pompeo of making an attempt to stamp out oversight of his tenure on the company.
In its newest report, the OIG itself recommended that Pompeo’s crew “essentially misunderstands the unbiased function of OIG and our statutory oversight duties.”
Susan Pompeo has traveled together with her husband on 11 official journeys — the place her presence was deemed important for “representational functions” — though the report solely covers the primary eight previous to April 2020. The “official” designation signifies that the Pompeos don’t have to reimburse the federal authorities for her journey and that she was given assist employees at no private value both.
The OIG didn’t examine whether or not her journey was justified, it solely centered on whether or not correct procedures had been adopted to authorize it.
Regardless of that restricted scope, Pompeo claimed full exoneration Thursday, saying, “There was no violation of any legislation or statute; There was no violation of any regulation; and There was no violation of any provision of the International Affairs Guide coverage.”
However the OIG particularly mentioned in its report that is not what it discovered: “(T)he Division reads into OIG’s report a conclusion that OIG doesn’t make — particularly, that the Division’s use of funds on the journeys reviewed by OIG didn’t violate any legislation, regulation, or FAM provision. The report, nonetheless, doesn’t attain this conclusion,” it mentioned.
The OIG instructed ABC Information it had no remark past the report. It offered the State Division and Congress its report this week, releasing it publicly late Thursday. Politico first reported on the report, which was additionally obtained by ABC Information hours earlier than its launch.
Whereas the State Division offered the OIG with justifications for every journey, it had no file of an official authorizing Susan Pompeo’s journey on six out of eight journeys, in accordance with the OIG.
“The Division offered documentation supporting the aim of every journey however couldn’t present documentation demonstrating approval of every journey, bringing into query whether or not the journeys had been, actually, licensed,” the report mentioned.
Of the eight journeys, the OIG discovered “solely two situations wherein an authorizing official offered and signed a justification assertion documenting the justification for Mrs. Pompeo’s journey.” That official can’t be Pompeo himself as a result of division officers cannot take “official actions” that may have an effect on them personally or financially.
Within the six different journeys, the secretary’s workplace offered paperwork justifying Susan Pompeo’s journey, however not any formal approval internally.
As a substitute, Brian Bulatao, the below secretary for administration and a longtime Pompeo good friend, instructed the OIG he verbally accepted 4 of these six journeys, whereas the opposite two had been previous to his tenure beginning on the State Division. However OIG mentioned “he couldn’t present any documentation evidencing that he had finished so,” and “there was no documentation that the Workplace of the Authorized Adviser or the related regional bureau had been consulted about these journeys.”
In its response to the OIG, included within the report, State Division counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl mentioned the division didn’t want to offer any proof of authorization.
“The governing statute authorizing such journey doesn’t require any such documentation; there is no such thing as a regulation requiring any such documentation; and there’s no governing FAM provision requiring any such documentation,” wrote Brechbuhl, who like Bulatao, is a longtime Pompeo good friend, West Level classmate and former enterprise companion.
The FAM is the International Affairs Guide, the division’s e book of pointers, which says that officers are “anticipated to make sparing and even handed use of this authorization” for “official” household journey and should present a “clear benefit to america.” However the provisions “look like drafted to cowl journey by relations of International Service officers,” not the secretary him or herself, the OIG mentioned.
Whereas which will clear Pompeo, the OIG additionally mentioned that “federal companies typically could not pay journey and subsistence bills for the spouses of workers who accompany them on official journey besides when such journey bills are particularly licensed by legislation,” citing the U.S. Comptroller Normal.
In a sturdy protection of Pompeo, Brechbuhl goes on to assault the OIG, accusing it of serving to “partisan actors … torture, twist and contort the report back to indicate that the Secretary and Division someway did one thing improper.” As a substitute of publishing a public report, he mentioned the watchdog ought to have come to the secretary’s crew to debate these points privately and discover a decision.
That suggestion “essentially misunderstands the unbiased function of OIG and our statutory oversight duties,” the OIG mentioned.
It is not the primary time Pompeo and his crew have accused the federal watchdog of political goals. Linick was repeatedly trashed by Pompeo, Bulatao, and others, accused of leaking or investigating matters that weren’t related.
The OIG is investigating Pompeo’s use of employees to run private errands for himself and his spouse. In August, it concluded a report on Pompeo’s use of an emergency authority to bypass Congress and promote $eight billion of arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — discovering that Pompeo acted inside his statutory authority, however did not correctly take into account civilian casualties.
The watchdog has additionally been working on a report about misconduct within the Workplace of the Chief of Protocol, which has not but been launched amid a struggle with the division about its findings.
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