For a while now, Mike Pompeo has been rumored to be weighing a 2020 Senate run—something that would require him to leave his post at the State department in the spring. But with an impeachment inquiry swirling around Donald Trump, Pompeo may be looking for a way out sooner. Three prominent Republicans told Time that the Secretary of State is searching for a graceful way to leave the Trump administration before he suffers permanent political damage—and before his relationship with the president, which has been strained in recent weeks, goes south. “If Pompeo was thinking he would cruise across the finish line on Trump’s coattails,” one Republican told the outlet, “he might want to rethink that assumption.”

The State Department denied that Pompeo has been discussing his resignation, telling Axios that the “story is completely false.” Pompeo “is 100% focused on being President Trump’s Secretary of State,” a spokesperson for the department said. But the rumor mill has been churning about Pompeo’s status in the administration since at least January, when it was reported that Mitch McConnell was working to recruit him to run for Senate in Kansas. Politico reported at the time that he had yet to make up his mind, but even then it was suggested that it may be in his best interest to extricate himself from the chaos of the Trump administration.

That seems even more true now, as witness testimony draws Pompeo into the Ukraine scandal that has engulfed Trump. In an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee last week, former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch told lawmakers that Pompeo and the State department eventually abandoned her as Rudy Giuliani and others conducted a smear campaign that paved the way for her ouster. In a highly-anticipated testimony Wednesday, European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland is expected to tell representatives that he kept Pompeo apprised of his pressure campaign in Ukraine—testimony that will draw the Secretary of State deeper into the mess.

Meanwhile, testimony by diplomats has reportedly made Pompeo a target of Trump’s displeasure, with the president blaming him for hiring officials who have become thorns in his side. “It would be really great if the people within the Trump Administration, all well-meaning and good (I hope!), could stop hiring Never Trumpers, who are worse than the Do Nothing Democrats,” Trump tweeted in October. “Nothing good will ever come from them!” He dropped the veil in comments to reporters soon after, criticizing Pompeo by name for making a “mistake” in hiring Bill Taylor, the current top diplomat in Ukraine. Trump “just felt like, ‘rein your people in,’” a senior White House staffer told NBC News on Monday. All this can be read as an ominous sign. “Pompeo was first in his class at West Point,” one Republican source told Time. “He knows that with Trump, loyalty only flows upstream.”

If Trump is frustrated with Pompeo, however, it goes both ways. As he seeks to please the president and maintain control of a large department dissatisfied with his leadership, the Secretary of State is reportedly feeling stretched thin. “Pompeo feels under siege,” an official told NBC. If the past is any indication, such frustrations in Trumpworld can turn quickly to bitterness—and personnel changes.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

— The strangely familiar nightmare of impeaching Trump

— Clues to the identity of Anonymous, who wrote the explosive White House op-ed

— Former Fox News staffers demand to be released from their NDAs

— Why crypto-crooks have their sights set on Iceland

— A sustained booing reveals Trump’s true face

— From the archive: A portrait of Kim Jong Un, part man, part myth

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.