Pompeo Was Riding High--Until the Ukraine Mess Exploded

https://www.wired.com/story/pompeo-was-riding-highuntil-the-ukraine-mess-exploded/

If you watched carefully earlier this month, you could almost see Mike Pompeo’s political life flash before his eyes as he sat for seven minutes, almost unblinking, under withering cross-examination by—of all people, he must’ve thought—a local Nashville TV reporter.

With question after question, WSMV’s Nancy Amons grilled the increasingly uncomfortable secretary of state about the terrible week he’d been having—the resignation of a top lieutenant, one of the few career foreign service officers who had steadied Pompeo’s ship at state; President Donald Trump’s surprise decision last week to abandon the Kurdish allies who had helped defeat ISIS in Syria and leave them to face annihilation at the hands of a Turkish invasion; the controversy over the recall of the ambassador to Ukraine, who also that day was testifying on Capitol Hill about the alleged conspiracy theory-laden smear campaign that had ended her assignment in Kyiv early; and about the mysterious role of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, and his mission this year to get Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, possibly in exchange for US military aid.

(snip)

The company never thrived, but it provided a key connection for Pompeo. Two of Thayer’s investors were the Wichita business titans and GOP financiers Charles and David Koch, then the co-owners of Koch Industries, an energy giant. Pompeo was an appealing soldier-scholar, an erudite and cultivated West Point intellectual, and in the years ahead they helped him at nearly every twist in his business and political career.

Indeed, while the Kochs have helped finance and boost numerous Republican politicians, few have been bolstered as directly as Pompeo, whose business career and modest wealth both stem heavily from Koch-backed ventures. (In a cabinet stocked with multiple multimillionaires, his financial disclosure forms show a net worth of a few hundred thousand dollars.)

(snip)

Pompeo doesn’t shy from a uniquely aggressive faith, using apocalyptic rhetoric to define America’s fight against terrorism as an all-out clash between good and evil, between Islamic extremists and those who understand “that Jesus Christ is our savior, is truly the only solution for our world,” and he’s spoken as politics as “a never-ending struggle ... until the Rapture.”

This spring, he recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the captured Golan Heights, a key boost to the Jewish state. He also held a private briefing for “faith-based” reporters and refused to release a transcript of his remarks, a dramatic departure from precedent. And during an interview with two reporters from the Christian Broadcasting Network, one asked: “Could it be that President Trump right now has been raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?”

Pompeo responded: “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.”

(end snip)

Very long article, but critical to understand the pompous ass that is Pompeo.