The House Foreign Affairs Committee announced on Friday that it would move to hold Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in contempt of Congress for defying its subpoenas related to the State Department’s participation in Senate Republicans’ investigation targeting the Bidens. The move, announced on Friday by Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the panel, would amount to a rare and stinging rebuke of the nation’s top diplomat, who has drawn criticism for flouting norms of diplomatic custom in pursuit of President Trump’s political interests and his own ambitions. Mr. Engel said he had sought records from Mr. Pompeo regarding “his transparently political misuse of department resources,” including in his recent address to the Republican National Convention from Jerusalem, but had been stonewalled in an “unprecedented record of obstruction and defiance.” The chairman said he had been told that receiving the records was contingent upon his committee agreeing to investigate the Bidens. “He has demonstrated alarming disregard for the laws and rules governing his own conduct and for the tools the Constitution provides to prevent government corruption,” Mr. Engel said of Mr. Pompeo. “He seems to think the office he holds, the department he runs, the personnel he oversees and the taxpayer dollars that pay for all of it are there for his personal and political benefit.”

Source: New York Times August 28, 2020 20:15 UTC