WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is again denying allegations that the State Department’s watchdog was fired for investigating him for possible misuse of government resources.
Former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick told Congress last week that three senior advisers in Pompeo’s office, including Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun, were aware that he was probing Pompeo’s and his wife’s use of government resources prior to his ousting in May.
The revelation possibly undermines Pompeo’s claim to have been unaware Linick was investigating him when he recommended Linick’s firing to President Donald Trump.
In letters addressed to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and obtained by NBC News, Pompeo accused Engel, whose panel is probing Linick’s removal, of providing “a clearly misleading narrative to the American people” and denied the “nasty insinuation” that Linick’s removal was tied to the ongoing investigation.
In a separate letter to Engel obtained by NBC News, Biegun said Pompeo had no knowledge of Linick’s investigation.
Biegun said there had been a firewall to preclude the secretary’s involvement in any specific watchdog investigation.
“We can confirm unequivocally that, to the extent that any of us were made of any ‘investigation’ of this nature, none of us briefed Secretary Pompeo on, or otherwise discussed with him, this purported ‘investigation’,” Biegun wrote.
The letters, dated Thursday, were first reported by AP.
“I need an Inspector General working every day with integrity to improve State Department operations and efficiency,” Pompeo wrote. “Mr. Linick was not that person.”
Instead, Pompeo said, he referred Linick to Trump for removal based on a “failure to perform his duties over a series of months,” as well as “strange and erratic behavior.”
Linick told Congress last week he had been given “no valid reason” that would justify his removal and the explanations he had read in the press were either “unfounded or misplaced.”
The secretary also took a personal jab at Engel.
“I hear you’ve been busy in your district, so let me get you up to speed on what’s been happening in your committee,” Pompeo wrote, adding a reference to a news article titled, “Amid a pandemic and protests, Rep. Eliot Engel is fighting for his political survival.”
Pompeo said that a close adviser, Under Secretary for Management Brian Bulatao, was willing to appear publicly before Engel’s committee later this month to “unambiguously refute” accusations of impropriety. Bulatao, who Linick said tried to “bully” him as he was probing Pompeo’s alleged misconduct, is a central figure to the congressional inquiry, his name appearing over 70 times in the transcript of Linick’s testimony released this week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Bulatao, who graduated in the same West Point class as Pompeo, is a longtime confidant of the secretary. The two were business partners, and when Pompeo was CIA director, he named Bulatao as chief operating officer at the agency.
In response, Engel said he was “puzzled why Secretary Pompeo’s letter includes so many errors, but I’m glad that the department is moving toward what the committees requested weeks ago: allowing Mr. Bulatao to speak on the record about the firing of Inspector General Linick,” according to The Associated Press.
Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would support calling Bulatao to testify.
“It is clear that both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the State Department desire an exchange of information and the opportunity to explain to one another their views on this matter,” McCaul said Friday in a statement. “Therefore, it would make sense for Under Secretary Bulatao to come before the committee in the near future.” Neither the secretary or his deputy directly addressed his committee’s request to speak with six other State Department officials as part of its inquiry.
NBC News previously reported that at the time of Linick’s firing, he was probing allegations that Pompeo made a staffer walk his dog, pick up his dry cleaning and make dinner reservations for Pompeo and his wife, among other personal errands. NBC News also reported that Linick was investigating a U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia.
