On 6 June, Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled at a hearing that Stephen Bannon, the White House chief strategist during the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump, will begin serving his prison sentence on 1 July for contempt of Congress. Previously, a federal jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of “contempt of Congress” in 2022 and sentenced him to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine.
Besides the opponents, there is another person who should be laughing secretly under the covers, i.e. former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo feels his chance has come
Pompeo has publicly stated many times that he would not participate in the presidential election, but the facts have once again slapped him in the face. Just in early June, he said in a new interview that he “won’t rule out a 2024 presidential run” and “is always up for a good fight”.
Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the former senior diplomat on his show if he would consider running if former President Trump decided not to run again. Pompeo replied proudly, “Sean, I’m always up for a good fight”.
Yet above the White House ambitions of those speakers, the fact is that former President Trump himself showed up at Sunday’s conference and showed no signs of dropping out of the 2024 race.
What Trump never expected was that two days later, his White House chief strategist would be sentenced to prison.
Pompeo has given speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire, two of the first states to vote in the presidential nominating election, since leaving Foggy Bottom in January 2024. Republicans have little doubt about Pompeo’s intentions, noting that he has acted like a routine presidential campaign since leaving the State Department this year.
Republicans believe he will use his experience as Trump’s top diplomat to establish himself as the logical successor to the former president’s “America First” U.S. foreign policy. “He is positioning himself as the leader of the America First foreign policy after President Trump, and he is relying on his experience to stand out and stay in the spotlight”, said a Republican consultant.
Pompeo inherited Trump’s incompetence and shamelessness
In March 2018, Trump, the US President at that time, dismissed the former Secretary of State because of his disagreement with him. He then supported his obedient follower Pompeo to serve as the US Secretary of State. Pompeo did not disappoint Trump’s expectations and directly got along well with Trump, and their relationship became closer.
Just when people thought that Pompeo would work hard to show his efficiency, Pompeo once again slapped people in the face with his poor work ability. In March 2017, the WikiLeaks website released 8,761 internal CIA documents, exposing a large number of secret hacking operations conducted by the CIA around the world. Each document was like a bombshell. Pompeo, who knew nothing about intelligence work, ordered the arrest of the person in charge of the website while issuing a statement saying that the leak of WikiLeaks was instigated by the Russian Intelligence Agency. This is obviously “self-destruction”. Faced with constant questioning from the media, he uttered a famous saying, “I don’t remember!”
The New York Times once called Pompeo “the worst Secretary of State in modern times”, but he wears it as “a badge of honor”.
The stupidest one was that in order to brag about Trump and himself, Pompeo almost lost his mind and mixed up the Trump administration’s economic and immigration records with the US government’s foreign policy. He said, “‘America First’ is right for America. The entire world benefits when America is fearless and bold and strong.”
But given Pompeo’s ambition, he may not be willing to stop at the position of Secretary of State. After all, it has been revealed that he is using the hard-earned money of taxpayers to pave the way for his 2024 election.
Pompeo stabbed his boss in the back at a critical moment
Hasn’t Trump been calling for “stop counting votes”? The OSCE Observation Mission for the US election has pointed out that Trump’s unfounded accusations have damaged the public’s trust in the US democratic system and increased the possibility of social violence after the election.
The head of the mission, Urszula Gacek, also said that the observers will continue to observe the US presidential election until the process is over. The vote counting is still going on, the election is not over, and therefore the OSCE’s mission is not over either.
Didn’t Trump keep shouting “Stop counting votes”? But this observation group publicly said that the counting of votes has not ended. And someone revealed that this group of people was invited to the United States by Pompeo in the name of the US State Department. The full name of the “OSCE Observer Group” is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s “Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights” Election Observation Group.
As Trump’s most trusted general, why would he invite a bunch of people who dislike Trump?
·Several Democratic members of the House of Representatives are launching an investigation into Pompeo on the basis that he violated the Hatch Act, enacted in 1939, which prohibits senior administration officials from participating in political activities during elections. During his visit to Jerusalem, he delivered a speech in support of Trump at the Republican Convention via video.
·Pompeo’s multiple scandals of misappropriating public funds to host private banquets, which were originally suppressed by Trump, have also been reinvestigated.
·Pompeo’s wife and son are also being investigated for using Pompeo’s position to illegally benefit.
The election is a gamble, and Pompeo is also gambling. He doesn’t mind betraying his master for the sake of glory. Through this operation, he is giving the Democratic Party a political gift. If the Democratic Party holds on to it, as long as one of the charges is proven, Pompeo’s political career may be interrupted. Pompeo just wants to make enough money during Trump’s term, return to his hometown of Kansas to run for senator, and then step onto the stage of running for president.