Before becoming the latest casualty in Donald Trump’s war on independent oversight, watchdog Steve Linick was said to be investigating allegations that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been forcing aides to perform personal errands, like walking his dog and picking up his dry cleaning. The president has minimized the brewing scandal. “I don’t think it sounds like that important,” he told reporters on Monday. But the issue, of course, is not merely a matter of asking a staffer to run a quick errand as a favor. If true, it could also perhaps point to a broader culture at the State Department in which Pompeo was taking advantage of his post for personal gain, as many a Trump associate—and indeed, Trump himself—have done.
If he was treating staffers as his own personal errand-runners, what else was Pompeo doing on the taxpayer dime? Well, according to NBC News, Pompeo held about two dozen so-called “Madison Dinners” at the State Department since taking the post in 2018, taxpayer-funded affairs featuring billionaire executives, Republican lawmakers, members of the conservative media.
Named for the meals former President and Secretary of State James Madison held with foreign diplomats to pick their brains, the lavish events appear to bear less resemblance to those meetings of minds and more to the kind of elbow-rubbing a politically-ambitious former congressman, CIA director, and current secretary of state might engage in to build a base for a future run. Just 14 percent of those invited to the dinners have been foreign officials or diplomats, according to guest lists obtained by NBC News; the rest of the invitees consisted of deep-pocketed figures from the business world, the media, or Washington. The State Department defended the dinners, which are not listed on Pompeo’s public schedule, as educational events where the secretary “has gained knowledge listening to his guests from all across the political spectrum and all around the world.” But critics charge that the invitees for the dinners—Fox News personalities like Laura Ingraham, powerful Republicans like Karl Rove, major GOP donors like Home Depot founder Ken Langone — don’t quite fit the bill for a diplomatic dinner.
“The CEO of Chick-fil-A is not someone I would say is involved in foreign policy,” a source familiar with the dinners told NBC News, referring to Dan Cathy, who attended one of the events at the Harry S. Truman Building in May 2019.
Though congressional committees have reportedly been looking into the dinners and Linick is said to have inquired about them just before his firing, it is unclear if the ousted inspector general had been formally investigating the events. Nevertheless, the Madison Dinners add to existing concerns about Pompeo’s conduct that have come under renewed attention in the days following the watchdog’s ouster. Pompeo recommended the firing, Trump told reporters this week, claiming not to have known Linick but saying that he was “happy to do it” all the same because he was appointed by Barack Obama, who has been the target of tired and baseless partisan attacks from the president in recent weeks. “They asked me to terminate him,” Trump said, referring to Pompeo’s State Department and Linick. “I have the absolute right, as president, to terminate. I’ve said, ‘Who appointed him?’ And they said, ‘President Obama.’ I said, ‘Look, I’ll terminate him.’” That rationale hasn’t satisfied critics, including some Republicans, so far. Neither has Pompeo’s vague suggestions that Linick was either leaking or insufficiently handling leaks, and that he was failing to promote the State Department’s mission.