Why I feel sorry for Mike Pompeo
The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has not been a fan of former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for quite some time. He was such a bad diplomat that he managed to dislodge Rex Tillerson for the title of Worst Secretary of State Ever. His displays of Tartuffery while in office were legion. He left Foggy Bottom with little to show for his nearly three years of service beyond leaving the State Department in pretty bad shape.
Despite all his bad behavior, however, I confess to feeling a small measure of pity for the man. Mike Pompeo is unloved by so many people. One U.S. ambassador described Pompeo to the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser as “like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.” Last year his hometown newspaper begged him to stop returning to Kansas during his time as secretary of state because his ambitious politicking was so unseemly. His 2021 efforts to go viral on social media have not worked out as planned. And after the latest inspector general report of Pompeo’s behavior as secretary of state, it is increasingly clear that this man has no real friends.
Politico’s Nahal Toosi broke the story last Friday, reporting that the IG’s report revealed “Pompeo violated federal ethics rules governing the use of taxpayer-funded resources when he and his wife, Susan, asked State Department employees to carry out tasks for their personal benefit more than 100 times.” Those tasks included caring for Pompeo’s pets, arranging for Pompeo’s son to secure a government discount at a West Point hotel, securing Sunday brunch reservations at the Cheesecake Factory, and stuffing, addressing and mailing the Pompeos’ personal Christmas cards.
Though not identified by name in the IG report, the bulk of the infractions involved demands of longtime aide Toni Porter, who had previously worked for Pompeo at CIA and in Congress. The part of the IG report that stands out is Pompeo’s justification for his requests and those of his wife from Porter: “Secretary Pompeo told OIG that he did not believe that such requests were improper; rather, his wife was asking a longtime friend – i.e., the Senior Advisor – to take on ‘a small simple task to help her out.’ He added that it was ‘perfectly fine for friends to help each other.’ ”
And this was the moment when any discerning reader must conclude that Mike Pompeo has no real friends.