Pompeo did not break law by selling arms to Saudi, concludes US IG
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A final report was issued on Monday by the US State Department, concluded by the State Department's Acting Inspector General Diana Shaw
The US State Department has issued a report saying the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not break any rules by conducting an arms sales with Saudi Arabia.
A final report was issued on Monday by the US State Department. The report was concluded by the State Department's Acting Inspector General Diana Shaw.
The report investigated Pompeo's actions of declaring a "national emergency" to justify a $8 billion in military sales to the Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, despite congressional objections.
The Inspector General, who has followed several others in this position, has declared that there was no wrong-doing in Pompeo's decision — a decision the Trump administration wanted to hear.
Earlier in May, then-Inspector General Steve Linick was abruptly fired by US President Donald Trump while he was investigating Pompeo.
Linick was was succeeded by Stephen Akard, who resigned from his post last week after recusing himself from the arms sales investigation.
The investigation then fell on Diana Shaw, who was Stephen's Akard's Deputy, and is now serving as the Acting Inspector General.
Linick and Akard are not the only ones who have had to leave their post mid-term. The frequent change in the position of Inspector general has raised concerns for the Democrats, and even some of the Republican colleagues of the President.
Representative Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said he is worried that the report was discussed internally before being released publically.
"The people briefing the press were the subjects of the IG’s probe, not the report’s authors. This obvious pre-spin of the findings reeks of an attempt to distract and mislead," Engel said.
While Pompeo has been declared non-guilty, the focus now is on the investigation of Linick's abrupt termination from his role as an IG.