Tag Archives: American Oversight

American Oversight Calls on @US_OSC and @StateOIG to Investigate Pompeo’s Email Rush Before the Election #WSOS

October 19, 2020 By in Functional Bureaus, Hotspots, Mike Pompeo, Oversight, Politics, Pompeo, Secretary of State, Spectacular, State Department, Trends, Trump Tags: , , , ,

 

 

 

 

American Oversight Publishes Heavily Redacted State/OIG Hotline Complaint Regarding Pompeo Conduct

July 20, 2020 By in Courage, Govt Documents, Mike Pompeo, Oversight, Pompeo, Public Service, Secretary of State, State Department, Trends, Whistleblowers Tags: , , , , , , , ,

 

In May this year, American Oversight filed an FOIA request to the Department of State seeking “records sufficient to identify any whistleblower complaints containing allegations that concern the conduct of Secretary Mike Pompeo.” It also asked that the request be processed on an expedited basis. “The request was made in light of news on May 15 that President Donald Trump would be ousting State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, the independent watchdog tasked with overseeing the State Department headed by Secretary Mike Pompeo.”
On July 17, 2020, American Oversight published the State/OIG Hotline Complaint, a 4-page heavily redacted document of a whistleblower complaint.
The complaint was not/not submitted anonymously, but the sender marked “no” on the section for willingness to waive confidentiality.
The whistleblower said that they witnessed “concerning activities” in Washington, D.C. , other locations in the U.S. including New York and Florida, and overseas.
A heavily redacted Summary of Incident notes whistleblower “directly witness and/or heard numerous firsthand accounts” followed by two paragraphs of blackened entry.
Under “False or misleading statements” were two paragraphs that were ruthlessly Sharpied.
Under “Direction by” two paragraphs were also under cover of darkness.
The complaint states, “tried on several occasions to obtain clarifications and guidance from senior leadership in S/ES and from the Office of Legal Advisors, but were blocked from doing so.”
Redacted names “were made aware of these concerns on repeated occasions.” “To my knowledge, none of them ever took action to resolve the issues, and several of them specifically directed subordinate staff to continue facilitating questionable activities after the concerns were raised.”
At some point the names of these alleged enablers will be known to the public. Please be alert on what happens to this whistleblower whose identity is known to State/OIG.
S/ES is the Executive Secretariat of the State Department.  The Office of Legal Adviser is currently encumbered by an Acting Legal Adviser since the departure of the Legal Adviser in May 2019.

Watchdogs’ Lawsuit Against Pompeo For Trump-Putin Notes Under Federal Records Act Moves Forward

December 13, 2019 By in Court Cases, Govt Documents, Mike Pompeo, Oversight, Pompeo, Secretary of State, State Department, Trends, Trump Tags: , , , , ,

 

Via American Oversight:

American Oversight and Democracy Forward, a pair of left-leaning watchdog groups, sued Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the State Department, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the archivist of the United States in June over the missing notes. The groups charge that Pompeo violated the Federal Records Act by allowing Trump to reportedly confiscate meeting notes prepared by State Department employees and for failing to preserve them.

In a ruling from the bench on Wednesday, Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case.

The order by McFadden, a Trump appointee, means that the lawsuit will be allowed to move forward and gives the government until Jan. 10 to say whether Pompeo complied with federal records law or show why he was not obligated to do so. Pompeo will then have until the middle of March to produce the State Department’s record of evidence.

Read more below:

@StateDept Releases First Ukraine-Related Documents Under FOIA

November 25, 2019 By in Court Cases, Functional Bureaus, Govt Documents, Mike Pompeo, Oversight, Pompeo, Secretary of State, State Department, Trump, Ukraine Tags: , , ,

 

The State Department is about to get inundated once more with FOIA requests.  Anyone anticipating an “FOIA surge” this time around? You may download the documents here, the first set in a court-ordered document production via American Oversight.
The November 1 court order from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the State Department must search for and produce by November 22, 2019 records from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl containing any readouts or summaries of President Trump’s July call with the President of Ukraine.
We’ve looked through a hundred pages of these newly released documents, and while the most notable are the telephone calls between Mr. Giuliani and the secretary of state (two calls referred to in the Hale deposition), there does not appear to be any documents specific to readouts and summaries of the July 25 call.
So, how soon do you think before we’ll see those documents?