The Deadline White House crew had a wry chuckle at Mike Pompeo's expense, but made sure to frame his current public embarrassment in the correct context.
Nicolle Wallace recounted the hot water Pompeo is in at the moment for an apparently unaccounted-for bottle of whiskey he received as a gift from the Japanese Government back when he was TFG's secretary of state. This wouldn't be a big deal if the whiskey was worth less than $390 — the value under which officials are allowed to keep such gifts. This bottle, though? $5800.
Wallace asked AP's reporter Jonathan Lemire what questions he had regarding the mysterious disappearance of the fancy pour.
"Oh, I BET Mike Pompeo doesn't remember where it is. I think that we can have our fun with this particular gift, and I think there's perhaps some likely suspects -- suspect as to what happened to it. But you're right, it is a small matter that points to a larger issue," Lemire said. "That this was an administration, not just in the White House but top cabinet officials, who were, of course, you know, used their positions at times, as certainly was true of our reporting about Agriculture Secretary Purdue, to make deals for themselves, to profit themselves or their backers, their constituents."
In the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION? Say it ain't so!
Lemire continued to rattle off other grifting, "hands-out" behavior, including TFG's massive profits made off the Secret Service from all his golf trips. "You know, this is an administration, sadly, where this, the shattering of the norm, even something on something somewhat trivial, though expensive, a bottle of whiskey, is what this administration was one of its hallmarks."
Wallace turned to A.B. Stoddard to continue the thread of Pompeo's "alleged inappropriate conduct."
"There were government employees, tax-payer funded employees doing personal things. I believe he and his wife hosted a lot of parties. There were a lot of questions, a big swirl of grift-adjacent conduct around the ex-secretary of state by the end," said Wallace.
"Absolutely, which is why it was so amusing to hear him tell Fox News Channel that the State Department is so incompetent, he doesn't know how they lost the bottle," Stoddard agreed. "Whether he is ever connected to that pricey bottle doesn't matter. It doesn't take away from the fact he leaned into state department staff in COVID to serve his exorbitant networking dinners he called the Madison Dinners to further his political career, using taxpayer dollars, and that he was obviously given permission from the top."
And nothing has changed, nor will it. Trump and his stooges continue to be all about the grift.
