Forgive me, but who in the hell is Mike Pompeo when he's at home? From NBC News:

“I am concerned with aspects of your request … that can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully, and treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Department of State, including several career Foreign Service Officers, whom the committee is now targeting,” Pompeo wrote in a letter to House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. “Let me be clear: I will not tolerate such tactics, and I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals whom I am proud to lead and serve alongside at the Department of State,” Pompeo wrote.



This is a day after Pompeo got caught in a ridiculous lie about what he knew concerning the infamous phone call between El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago and the president of Ukraine. Pompeo said that he'd known nothing about it, but, on Monday, thanks to the Wall Street Journal, we learned that Pompeo had been on the call. (Which leads me to wonder who exactly it was who ordered the conversation to be buried in the Secret Server.) Rudy Giuliani has been spouting off about how he went over to Ukraine on a "mission" from the State Department. (Who gave him his orders?) Pompeo is not dealing from a position of strength here. I continue to believe that Elijah Cummings had the right idea when he suggested the House cut off the paychecks of government officials who stonewall congressional investigations. I also think it would be a good idea if people started getting thrown into 19th-century dungeons.

Meanwhile, Pompeo is on his way to the Vatican with Sebastian Gorka, who is as nutty as a squirrel, in tow as a member of the media. Coincidentally, Newt Gingrich, husband of the United States ambassador to the Vatican, leapt to the electric Twitter machine to condemn the whole impeachment inquiry as a desecration of the memory of the proud impeachment effort Gingrich mounted against Bill Clinton's penis. If Gingrich is visiting the wife, what those three ghouls might cook up in the shadow of the Chair of Peter is anybody's guess.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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