© Jabin Botsford Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a briefing in response to the coronavirus pandemic at The White House on April 8, 2020.
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WASHINGTON — As some Republicans are distancing themselves from President Donald Trump after a violent mob of his supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came to the president's defense Saturday, criticizing Twitter's decision to ban his account.
- 2 days ago Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joins Republicans to unveil the Maximum Pressure Act, April 21, 2021. Source: Twitter/Republican Study Group.
- Pompeo, who is responsible for representing American democracy around the world, has struck a noticeably different tone of his official Twitter account, where he condemned the 'lawlessness.
- 2 days ago Pompeo and Dempsey made their respective debuts as Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd in the premiere of Grey’s Anatomy in March 2005. The medical drama, created by Shonda Rhimes, followed a team.
- 191.7k Followers, 84 Following, 136 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo86).
'Silencing speech is dangerous. It’s un-American. Sadly, this isn’t a new tactic of the Left. They’ve worked to silence opposing voices for years. We cannot let them silence 75M Americans. This isn’t the CCP,' Pompeo tweeted to his personal account.
Pompeo's comments come as some Republicans have called for Trump's removal from office and as a handful of White House staff and administration officials have resigned over Trump's role in inciting a mob to storm the Capitol and disrupt the peaceful transition of power.
The top arms control expert in the State Department resigned Friday in protest of the riots. Assistant Secretary Christopher Ford had already submitted his resignation letter to Trump the previous week as is traditional for political appointees during a change in administration with the intention to stay on until the end of the administration.
'I cannot continue to serve in an Administration at a time in which some are willing to condone, or even to incite, violent insurrection against the country I hold dear and whose Constitution I have taken a sacred oath to support and defend,' Ford wrote in his resignation letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post.
Pompeo's comments also come as some extremist Trump supporters are threatening to return to Washington to disrupt President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20.
7 hours ago Pompeo's worst abuses — rooted in extreme politicization of the State Department — were devastating to U.S. Interests around the globe.
Pompeo, who is responsible for representing American democracy around the world, has struck a noticeably different tone of his official Twitter account, where he condemned the 'lawlessness and rioting' as unacceptable.
'Being the greatest country on earth is not just about our incredible economy & our strong military; it's about the values we project out into the world. I believe in America, and American goodness,' he tweeted Friday on his official account.
World leaders, many of whom are used to U.S. lectures about orderly transitions of power, responded to the images of the Trump mob swarming the Capitol on Wednesday with shock. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the scenes in Washington 'disgraceful.'
Pompeo is widely thought to have political ambitions beyond his position in the Trump administration. He considered running for the U.S. Senate in 2020 from Kansas and, breaking with tradition for secretaries of state, he played an active role in campaigning for Trump in his re-election.
Pompeo Twitter Wokeism
Some Republicans with presidential ambitions, including Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, have resisted condemning Trump's actions this week, as many in the party continue to believe that they cannot win without support from the president's loyal base.
Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account on Friday, citing 'the risk of further incitement of violence.'
The president’s account, with 88 million followers, was initially banned for 12 hours on Wednesday due to 'severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy,' after he used the platform to condemn Vice President Mike Pence as his supporters stormed the Capitol.
'After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,' the company said in a tweet.
Donald Trump Jr. called Twitter's decision to ban the president's personal account a 'full frontal assault' of free speech.
'It's a sad day, when you're literally talking about losing free speech,' he continued in a 9-minute video posted to his Facebook on Saturday.
More than 200 members of Congress are calling for President Donald Trump to be removed from office.
On Thursday Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., became the first Republican to say the 25th Amendment should be invoked while Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that she wanted Trump to resign.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement on Friday that the House is prepared to move forward with articles of impeachment against Trump if he does not resign. The vote could come as early as the middle of next week, just days before the president's term expires.
'I don’t know what they are going to send over,' said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn. speaking to Fox News. 'And one of the things that I’m concerned about frankly is whether the House would completely politicize something.
'I do think the president committed impeachable offenses,' said Toomey. 'But I don’t know what is going to land on the Senate floor, if anything.'
© (Twitter) Michael Pompeo's tweets have the look of a political campaign. (Twitter)When Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo launched his unusual Twitter victory lap on New Year's Day, he promised he would be telling a story about American foreign policy that could not be read anywhere else.
Pompeo, part of a dwindling handful of Cabinet secretaries and senior officials determined to stick with President Trump to the bitter end, has posted scores of messages, boasting about what he claims are his great achievements in nearly three years as America’s top diplomat.
The Pompeo tweet-a-thon will surprise no one who has followed his tenure. He condemned journalists, hailed Trump's achievements and posted photographs of himself traveling the world.
The tweets generated an intense amount of rebuttal, even ridicule, from Democrats, foreign policy experts and commentators. Pompeo is said to be considering a bid for president in 2024, and a careful review by The Times of his missives reveals as much about Pompeo's time as secretary of state as it does about the combative politician's ambitions:
Pompeo claimed to have Swagger, but nobody knows what that means:
https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1345067615568490496?s=20Putting aside the obvious question of how humility can be part of swagger, Pompeo began using the term when he took over the State Department in 2018.
He promised to restore 'swagger' to the demoralized agency, but after an initial honeymoon, diplomats increasingly chafed at Pompeo's partisan leadership style and willingness to do Trump's bidding. It culminated when he refused to publicly defend the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who testified in Trump's first impeachment hearing.
Numerous career foreign service officers have quit, been forced into retirement or fired. They were often replaced by inexperienced political appointees. And the number of applicants for the service has plummeted, meaning the pool for future diplomats is shrinking.
The nation's top diplomat said he stood up to dictators, but not really:
https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1346086762586767364
In the Tweet above, Pompeo was probably referring to Cuba's Raul Castro, whom he shunned after an Obama-era rapprochement. However, the list of dictators the administration praised or cozied up to is long. They include Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Pompeo downplayed atrocious human rights abuses — including the gruesome murder of a journalist allegedly at the hands of the Saudi security service — in the interest of cementing arms deals and other priorities. He also helped open dialogue with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un. In the end, though, it was Kim who appears to have benefited most from his meetings with Pompeo and two with Trump. The autocrat received the international standing he craved — and kept the nuclear weapons that the administration hoped to destroy.
Pompeo embodied America First, though experts say the strategy will only hurt the U.S. in the end:
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 2, 2021
The 'America First' strategy often meant America Alone. Traditional allies like Germany and Canada were ignored or insulted. Mexico and several Central American countries were essentially blackmailed, told they would suffer economic sanctions if they didn't cooperate with the administration to stop migration.
The strategy also led to U.S. decisions to withdraw from treaties and other international agreements as well as several United Nations agencies, such as the World Health Organization.
For a victory lap, Pompeo sure did spend a lot of time trashing his predecessors:
We exposed Cuba's slave trade in doctors. The last Administration congratulated Castro for exploiting Cuban doctors. pic.twitter.com/MI0RGLpHAH
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 4, 2021Pompeo Twitter Multiculturalism
Even after four years in government, Pompeo continued with harsh attacks of former President Obama and his last secretary of State, John Kerry. Contrasting his actions with theirs seemed to be the way Pompeo measured his success.
That has included his policies in the Middle East, where the administration sided overtly with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. Pompeo reversed decades of norms by recognizing the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the Golan Heights, captured from Syria, as Israel territory. He declared that Jewish settlements in the West Bank were not illegal, contrary to the position taken by most countries, and became the first secretary of state to visit one. In one of his tweets, he uses the old biblical names of Judea and Samaria to refer to the West Bank, adopting the language of the settlers.
Pompeo is ambitious:
During his tenure, he courted Christian evangelicals — a huge Republican constituency — and delivered political speeches while on the State Department dime. Once a sharp Trump critic, the nation's top diplomat fully embraced his boss's bombast. Pompeo's brash persona, on full display in his final month of tweets, can best be seen as a calculated way to position himself as Trump’s heir in the 2024 GOP primaries.
Mike Pompeo Tweets Today
In one of his final State Department tweets, he even flogged his private handle:
Pompeo Twitter 1384
https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1349355524463054852Pompeo Twitter Countdown
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.