November 18, 2019

Mike Pompeo Is Trump’s Latest Scapegoat

Michael Candelori/ZUMA

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In Donald Trump’s world, Donald Trump is never to blame for things going wrong. And since things go wrong constantly, this means that the search for scapegoats is neverending.

In the latest example of this, Trump is taking a beating from diplomats and other State Department officials who have testified that Trump did indeed try to extort Ukraine into providing dirt on Joe Biden in return for military aid. Since Trump can’t admit that his problems stem from the fact that he actually did something wrong, it must be a problem with the State Department instead. Right? So now Mike Pompeo is caught in Trump’s crosshairs:

Trump has fumed for weeks that Pompeo is responsible for hiring State Department officials whose congressional testimony threatens to bring down his presidency, the officials said. The president confronted Pompeo about the officials — and what he believed was a lackluster effort by the secretary of state to block their testimony — during lunch at the White House on Oct. 29, those familiar with the matter said.

….“He feels like he’s getting a bunch of blame from the president and the White House for having hired all these people who are turning against Trump,” an official familiar with the dynamic said of Pompeo, “and that it’s the State Department that is going to bring him down, so it’s all Pompeo’s fault.”

Is there anybody that Trump hasn’t turned on yet? Aside from family members, of course. There’s Steve Mnuchin, who miraculously seems to have remained on good terms with Trump, but that’s about it beyond a few low-profile cabinet members that Trump doesn’t care about and probably doesn’t even realize exist. Working for Donald Trump is not for the faint of heart.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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