Former secretary of state and Trump ally decides not to challenge ex-boss for the Republican nomination
Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Friday that he will not run for president in the 2024 election.
The devoted ally and defender of Donald Trump opted out of a contest that would have put him into competition with his former commander in chief.
Continue reading...Trump’s secretary of state makes comments on podcast to defend former administration siding more openly with Israel
Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has defended Israel’s decades-long control of the Palestinian territories by claiming that the Jewish state has a biblical claim to the land and is therefore not occupying it.
Pompeo told the One Decision podcast that his religious beliefs, US strategic interests and his view of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a “known terrorist” underpinned his support as the Trump administration’s top diplomat for the shift in US policy away from mediating a two-state solution and toward more openly siding with Israel.
Continue reading...Fred Ryan says former secretary of state ‘outrageously misrepresents’ Post journalist murdered by Saudi Arabian regime
The publisher of the Washington Post, Fred Ryan, has blasted the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for “outrageously misrepresenting” and “spreading vile falsehoods” about Jamal Khashoggi, the Post columnist murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime in 2018.
“It is shameful that Pompeo would spread vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s life and service and his commitment to principles Americans hold dear as a ploy to sell books,” Ryan said.
Continue reading...Former Trump secretary of state claims US media depicted Washington Post columnist as ‘a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward’
The former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has dismissed the indignation prompted by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi as “faux outrage” – and cast doubt on whether the Washington Post columnist was a genuine journalist at all.
In his new book, Pompeo says that Khashoggi – who was killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018 – was not “a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward martyred for bravely criticising the Saudi royal family”.
Continue reading...The GOP flopped in the midterms but its White House hopefuls still hope to find readers – and conservative group bulk-buyers
In one of the clearest signs that the 2024 Republican presidential primary will feature rivals to Donald Trump, a host of likely candidates have released or will soon release books purporting to outline their political visions.
Such books often sell poorly, but that is rarely their point. They are markers of ambition. To judge from the political bookshelves, after midterm elections in which many Trump-endorsed candidates suffered humiliating losses, the former president will not be the only declared candidate for long.
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper support visit to ‘freedom-loving Taiwan’ but Biden concerned any trip would antagonise Beijing
Plans for Nancy Pelosi, the US House speaker, to visit Taiwan have prompted opposition from China and the American military but support from Republicans in Washington, including former members of the Trump administration.
Trump’s second secretary of defense, Mark Esper, told CNN: “I think if the speaker wants to go, she should go.”
Continue reading...Two cabinet members considered invoking the 25th amendment, new book by the ABC White House correspondent says
Donald Trump’s secretary of state and treasury secretary discussed removing him from power after the deadly Capitol attack by invoking the 25th amendment, according to a new book.
The amendment, added to the constitution after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, potentially on grounds of mental as well as physical fitness. It has never been used.
Continue reading...The state department has said it is looking into the apparent disappearance of a nearly $6,000 bottle of whisky given more than two years ago to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by the government of Japan.
In a notice filed in the federal register, the department said it could find no trace of the bottle’s whereabouts and that there is an “ongoing inquiry” into what happened to the booze. The department reported the investigation in its annual accounting of gifts given to senior US officials by foreign governments and leaders.
Continue reading...Analysis: Pompeo’s replacement, Antony Blinken, has pledged to put experts at the center of diplomacy and listen dissenting views
No statues were toppled at the state department after Mike Pompeo’s departure. It was a changing of the guard, rather than regime change. But in one case at least, his legacy was brought down quickly and visibly.
On the day of the inauguration, workmen brought down a giant placard about “professional ethos” that the former secretary of state had erected at the main entrance to mark his first year in office.
Continue reading...Chinese foreign ministry announced sanctions against Mike Pompeo and 27 others as Biden was taking presidential oath
China has said it wants to cooperate with Joe Biden’s new US administration, while announcing sanctions against the “lying and cheating” outgoing secretary of state Mike Pompeo and 27 other top officials under Donald Trump.
The move was a sign of China’s anger, especially at an accusation Pompeo made on his final full day in office that China had committed genocide against its Uighur Muslims, an assessment that Biden’s choice to succeed Pompeo, Anthony Blinken, said he shared.
Continue reading...The secretary of state has laid political booby traps for Biden in a diplomatic onslaught – with the aim of winning the White House
While all eyes are on Donald Trump and his Capitol Hill mob, a would-be heir and successor is running riot all by himself, storming citadels, wagging the flag and breaking china. No, it’s not Donald Jr, or Ivanka, or Ted Cruz, and certainly not poor, conflicted Mike Pence.
Mike Pompeo may not strike many people as presidential material. But Trump lowered the bar. Make no mistake. America’s snarly, bully-boy secretary of state is focusing not on Joe Biden’s inauguration this week but on how to beat him or any other Democrat in 2024.
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo’s designation of Houthis as foreign terror group will block food and other aid, senior humanitarian says
The US designation of the Houthi movement in Yemen as a terrorist organisation is likely to lead to a famine on a scale not seen for 40 years, the UN’s most senior humanitarian official has said.
Mark Lowcock, the director general of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, called for the decision to be reversed, saying the cost of food was likely to rise by as much as 400%, way beyond the reach of many aid agencies.
Continue reading...Trump’s foreign policy chief has pursued confrontation with Iran and other perceived enemies, but his efforts to disrupt diplomacy will end in failure
The finale of Mike Pompeo’s reign at the state department has been as controversial and clamorous as the rest of his 32-month tenure, but it is unclear what traces will remain after he has gone.
The last days of Pompeo have been played out in a blizzard of self-congratulatory tweets, at the rate of two dozen a day, as he seeks to write his own first draft of history.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has reclassified Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism” in a last-minute move that could complicate efforts by Joe Biden’s incoming administration to re-engage with Havana.
The controversial step was announced by secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Monday, at the start of Trump’s final full-week in office, and places Cuba alongside Iran, North Korea and Syria.
Continue reading...Trump administration’s 11th-hour decision greeted with dismay by aid agencies working in Yemen
The Trump administration has made an 11th-hour decision to designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organisation in a move that is likely to severely worsen the war-torn country’s humanitarian crisis.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, announced the decision late on Sunday, despite bipartisan opposition and months of warnings from UN officials and aid organisations that the designation – part of the White House’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and its allies – would lead to shortages and delays for aid and commercial shipments and undermine the peace process.
Continue reading...Leaders fear Donald Trump and Israel will act against Iran and Hezbollah before Joe Biden’s arrival
For the past four years, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fought a war in Syria, supported Iraqi forces and stage-managed the politics of its homeland, all the while trying to avoid facing off with Israel. Yet its exhausted leaders fear the last gasps of Donald Trump’s presidency could deliver threats that eclipse everything else.
In the organisation’s heartland, Hezbollah members are watching the clock – and the skies. Israeli jets have been streaking overhead for more than a month, and over the past few weeks the frequency of flights has sharply increased, as has security in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the nerve centre of the region’s most powerful militant group.
Continue reading...Secretary of state blames Russia for worst-ever US government hack as Kremlin denies involvement and Trump stays silent
Mike Pompeo has become the first member of the Trump administration to blame Russia for wide-ranging hacks of US government agencies and private companies.
Related: US scrambling to understand fallout of suspected Russia hack
Continue reading...Secretary of state is first in administration to point to Russia but Trump attacks media over reports
Not long after Mike Pompeo became the first member of the Trump administration to blame Russia for wide-ranging hacks of US government agencies and private companies which have sent Washington scrambling to fill the breach, the president sought to play the hack down.
Related: US scrambling to understand fallout of suspected Russia hack
Continue reading...The Palestinians are hoping a Biden presidency will slow the growing rapport between Saudi Arabia and Israel
During the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the question of whether Saudi Arabia would make peace with Israel had come down to a question of when.
The terms of such a deal were more or less agreed during Trump’s tumultuous term, thrashed out between his envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the kingdom’s effective ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, who held a very different view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from other Saudi leaders.
Their outlook centred on Iran rather than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the centre of the region’s dysfunction. And Israel, they agreed, could help, not hinder, progress on that score. Prince Mohammed eschewed his father and uncles’ views that a return to 1967 lines was a starting point for peace, in favour of the Kushner line that Palestinian leaders had caused talks to stagnate.
Ties warmed quickly, especially from May 2017, when Saudi Arabia received Trump as a conquering hero after he overturned the nuclear deal with Tehran and reorientated Washington’s focus to Riyadh.
The secret channels used to communicate between the kingdom and Israel were discarded. So was the need for mediators, as Saudi officials made regular visits to Tel Aviv and vice versa. Denials of such trips were replaced by hints that they had taken place. Then came peace deals with Saudi allies, the UAE and Bahrain, and now a visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to Prince Mohammed on Saudi soil that Israel didn’t bother to disguise.
Despite a flight path visible on flight tracking sites, which showed the arrival of Netanyahu’s preferred charter jet on the shores of the Red Sea city of Neom, Riyadh responded with a pro forma denial.
There to meet the Israeli prime minister on the shores of the Red Sea was outgoing US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on a mission to finalise as much as he can before he loses his job in eight weeks. Securing a peace pact is something Pompeo, Kushner and Trump have desperately pushed for and such a deal would indeed be seismic in the Middle East, where many are nervously awaiting its impact.
Israeli PM is said to have flown to Saudi Arabia to meet Mohammed bin Salman and Mike Pompeo
Benjamin Netanyahu has made an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia to meet the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, according to media reports in Israel.
The Sunday night trip, if confirmed, would mark an extremely rare high-level meeting between the long-time foes, one that Israel has been pushing for in its efforts for regional acceptance. Hebrew-language reports, citing unnamed Israeli officials, said Netanyahu was accompanied by Yossi Cohen, head of the country’s Mossad spy agency.
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