Secretary of State Mike Pompeo doubled down on the White House’s assertions that President Donald Trump did nothing wrong or inappropriate during his July phone call with Ukraine’s president.

Pompeo was reacting to leaked media reports claiming that Soviet-born Army officer Alexander Vindman had testified that the transcript the White House released of Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president “omitted crucial words and phrases.”

However, Vindman underscored that the transcript overall was accurate.

“I don’t know what any of the witnesses actually said [because we’re only hearing] leaks from Democrats who have a mission set to take down President Trump,” Pompeo told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. “I was on the call. I thought the way the president handled it was appropriate.”

In addition to being a West Point graduate, Mike Pompeo is an attorney who went to Harvard Law School.

Pompeo noted that Trump’s Ukraine policy is consistent with longstanding U.S. policy toward Ukraine, which includes rooting out longtime corruption in the country.

“Every one of these individuals [in the Trump administration] had the same Ukrainian policy that President Trump had,” Pompeo said. “This is a Ukraine policy that wanted us to provide Javelin weapon systems. We did that. This is a Ukraine policy that wanted to ensure [President Volodymyr] Zelensky had the resources he needed to push back against corruption that we all know has existed in Ukraine.”

MacCallum asked: “Was there anything that was on the call that pointed to a quid quo pro?”

Pompeo said absolutely not. “Our policy has been very clear all along with respect to Ukraine,” he said. “The president had real concerns the Europeans weren’t doing enough [to combat corruption in Ukraine].”

The Democrats are trying to unilaterally impeach Trump in secret because they claim that he pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s alleged abuse of power during his eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president.

However, both the Ukrainian president and Ukraine’s foreign minister have said that President Trump did not pressure them or make any demands.

https://twitter.com/LaylaAlisha11/status/1175794549500854274

In response to rumors that some people in the State Department disagree with how Trump handled the Ukraine call, Pompeo said it’s inevitable that there will be differences of opinion when you’re dealing with a massive government agency.

“There is always friction in organizations of 70,000 people,” Pompeo said. “Ukraine is one of dozens of issues that we address every day at the State Department. I know you have people out here who are thinking about impeachment every day, all day. It’s on TV all day. It’s breathless reporting.”

Pompeo underscored: “But the State Department is out there making sure that the American people are safe. There’s a government in Lebanon that has just fallen and protests in Chile that rose to a level that we had to cancel a meeting. We’re focused on these big, broad issues.”

When asked if the State Department was specifically concerned about Biden’s alleged abuse of power in Ukraine, Pompeo replied: “We were focused on [fighting] corruption. If that corruption involved individuals who had business interests there, we want to know that. These oligarchs that operate in Ukraine outside of Ukrainian [laws] for too long need to be stopped.”

Flashback: While he was vice president, Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine didn’t fire its top prosecutor, who was investigating Burisma, an energy company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch. Under pressure from Biden, that prosecutor was fired.

At the time Joe made the threat, his son Hunter Biden was on the board of directors of Burisma, earning over $50,000 a month for a part-time gig for which he had no relevant experience or background.

Trump greeted like a rock star as thunderous cheers rain down on him at Army-Navy game

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Samantha Chang

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Samantha Chang is a senior staff writer for BizPac Review. She is a financial editor and lawyer based in New York City.

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