A State Department whistleblower has revealed that he attempted to warn the agency’s Office of Legal Affairs about “questionable” activities involving Secretary Mike Pompeo but he was “blocked” from doing so, McClatchy reported Sunday, citing the complaint.
The complaint, made public through a lawsuit filed by the watchdog group American Oversight, alleged the unnamed employee and other “eyewitnesses” were prevented from sharing concerns about Pompeo’s activities in the U.S. and abroad with superiors and legal authorities at the agency despite repeated attempts.
According to the report, the whistleblower named several locations as sites of the secretary’s alleged “questionable” dealings, including Florida, New York, Washington D.C., and other locations overseas.
McClatchy didn’t detail the nature of the alleged illegal activities.
Several other State Department officials “were made aware of these concerns on repeated occasions,” the complaint continued.
“To my knowledge, none of them ever took action to resolve the issues, and several of them specifically directed subordinate staff to continue facilitating questionable activities after the concerns were raised,” the whistleblower wrote.
American Oversight’s executive director pointed to the ongoing probe as a sign for optimism concerning efforts to hold Pompeo accountable in a statement to McClatchy.“In some ways, this is good news, because there’s some indication now that the inspector general’s office has not backed off of investigating the secretary’s conduct,” Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, said. “But in other ways, there’s much we still don’t know about that conduct.”
“In some ways, this is good news, because there’s some indication now that the inspector general’s office has not backed off of investigating the secretary’s conduct,” Austin Evers said. “But in other ways, there’s much we still don’t know about that conduct.”
The State Department declined McClatchy’s request for comment on the whistleblower complaint. However, in explaining redactions made to the whistleblower complaint, the agency’s lawyers revealed that Pompeo still remains the target of at least one active investigation despite arranging the firing of the agency’s Inspector General in May.
You can read the entire report here.
