Pompeo cancels final trip abroad amid tumultuous transition

[BumRushDaShow]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Washington Post




Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled his final trip abroad as the nation’s top diplomat on Tuesday, citing the need to ensure a “smooth and orderly transition process” over the next eight days. Pompeo had planned to travel to Brussels for meetings with Belgian officials and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, but his spokeswoman, Morgan Ortagus, said the department is canceling “all planned travel this week” as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to name the career officials who will lead the department until a new Cabinet is confirmed.

The abrupt cancellation — Pompeo phoned Stoltenberg about the decision around noon Tuesday while some of his aides were already on the ground in Belgium — comes at a perilous time in U.S. politics. Some of the officials Pompeo planned to meet with have issued public statements of concern about the violence at the Capitol incited by President Trump as Pompeo has tried to castigate those impugning the health of America’s democracy as committing “slander.”

Pompeo, who often boasts of America’s status in the world when traveling abroad, would be arriving in Brussels amid turmoil at home, including FBI warnings of armed protests in all 50 states, thousands of National Guard troops preparing to deploy to the nation’s capital, a fresh impeachment push against the president by House Democrats and record deaths and infections in the United States related to the novel coronavirus.

The State Department said Pompeo’s trip was designed “to reaffirm the deep and enduring partnership between the United States and Belgium and the unwavering U.S. support for NATO.” Besides Stoltenberg, he was also set to meet Belgium’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Pompeo reportedly planned to stop in Luxembourg on Thursday, but the meeting fell through after the country’s foreign minister called Trump a “political pyromaniac” and a “criminal” for inciting the rioters at the Capitol.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/pompeo-cancels-final-trip-europe/2021/01/12/2b705f42-5508-11eb-89bc-7f51ceb6bd57_story.html

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Start packing up your stuff.

[marybourg]

1. One less grifting trip on our dime.

[grumpyduck]

3. You beat me to it.

[marybourg]

6. Great minds and all.

[Turbineguy]

2. Yeah, the Europeans

will sure miss that stinking bag of guts.

[Sophiegirl]

4. Oh no!!

You mean he won’t get to take his final boondoggle vacation with his wife before getting kicked to the curb?

So sad.

[Submariner]

5. I hope to see West Point strip him of his commission

he is a disgrace to the uniform of the United States Army, and should be shit canned into the dustbin of history.

The State Department has been nothing but a travel agency for world touring for this pig and his wife.

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. That sound you hear is Europe breathing a sigh of relief.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. "The State Department has been nothing but a travel agency for world touring"

He was just following the example of his wealthy predecessor - Rex Tillerson!

[Cozmo]

9. Good idea, Mikey. Do you need your laundry picked up before you go? You piece of shit!

[riversedge]

10. Exclusive: Luxembourg, EU snub Pompeo in final Europe trip, diplomats say

January 12, 202112:44 PMUpdated 3 hours ago



Exclusive: Luxembourg, EU snub Pompeo in final Europe trip, diplomats say

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pompeo-europe-exclusive/exclusive-luxembourg-eu-snub-pompeo-in-final-europe-trip-diplomats-say-idUSKBN29H2MM

By Robin Emmott, Humeyra Pamuk

5 Min Read

BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled his Europe trip at the last minute on Tuesday after Luxembourg’s foreign minister and top European Union officials declined to meet him, European diplomats and other people familiar with the matter said.
FILE PHOTO: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, U.S., January 12, 2021. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

The Europeans snubbed Washington’s top envoy days after the storming of the U.S. Capitol by thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump, an unprecedented attack on American democracy that stunned many world leaders and U.S. allies.

Pompeo, a close ally of Trump, had sought to meet Jean Asselborn in Luxembourg, a small but wealthy NATO ally, before meeting EU leaders and the bloc’s top diplomat in Brussels, three people close to the planning told Reuters.

Pompeo had originally planned to go to Luxembourg, but that leg of the trip was scrapped, one diplomatic source said, after officials there showed reluctance to grant him appointments. The Brussels leg was still on until the last minute.

But Pompeo’s final visit schedule in Brussels was not going to involve any meetings with the EU or any public events at NATO. A third diplomatic source said allies were “embarrassed” by Pompeo after the violence in Washington last Wednesday......................................

[llmart]

11. Well, color me surprised that this is the REAL reason he cancelled his trip.

Tries to tell us that it's because he's sooooo concerned about the turmoil in D.C. Yeah, right.

These people must think we're all as stupid as trump supporters.

[diva77]

12. no waffles or chocolates for you, pompous, grifting, lying, rethug accomplice to

1,000,000+ illegal and/or immoral acts while strutting around the world with unearned self-importance.

[Omaha Steve]

13. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

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