Mike Pompeo invested taxpayer funds on pens made in China for elite suppers

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Mike Pompeo spent taxpayer funds on pens made in China for elite dinners

Revealed: The Secrets our Clients Used to Earn $3 Billion

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shows up with his other half Susan Pompeo at the airport in Prague, Czech Republic, August 11, 2020.

Petr David Josek | Reuters

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo invested more than $10,000 of taxpayer cash on China-made pens for participants at personal supper celebrations he hosted, consisting of CEOs, conservative media figures and Republican donors, according to State Department records.

The pens Pompeo given out to his Madison Dinner visitors cost approximately more than $26 each, according to the records, initially reported Thursday by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

TEAM kept in mind that at the exact same time the leading U.S. diplomat was administering 400 of the pricey pens, he was openly slamming China for “trade abuses that cost American jobs and strike enormous blows to economies all across America.”

In a tweet Thursday, he stated: “We must remain tough on China.”

Pompeo’s then-boss, now-former President Donald Trump, ran for the White House as a Republican on an “America First” platform and likewise frequently protruded at China.

In addition to the expense of the pens, which in a sophisticated touch were inscribed with the words “Madison Dinner,” taxpayers bore the expense for $40,000 approximately in other expenditures connected to the soirees, according to TEAM, which got files about the pens through a Freedom of Information Act claim.

TEAM kept in mind that a worker of the State Department’s procedure workplace sent out more than a lots e-mails to the pen supplier in the summer season of 2018 figuring out information of the order, and asking concerns about things like whether it would be possible to expand a medallion on the pen.

Records reveal that the pens were bought from Madden Branded Goods, a Florida-based business that expenses itself as “a team of creative thinkers and team players who are passionate about logo’d swag.”

In all, the State Department shelled out a minimum of $10,433 for the pens.

A spokesperson for Pompeo, who is thought about a possible prospect for the 2024 GOP governmental election, did not instantly react to an ask for remark.

Pompeo called the suppers after the 5th American secretary of State, James Madison, who was chosen president after acting as the country’s leading diplomat.

NBC News, which initially reported information of the suppers, formerly stated that State Department authorities associated with the suppers “raised concerns internally that the events were essentially using federal resources to cultivate a donor and supporter base for Pompeo’s political ambitions.”

Only around 14% of the participants were diplomats or foreign authorities.

Pompeo is a previous CIA director and GOP congressman from Kansas.

NBC reported that the “elite group” of visitors that Pompeo and his other half, Susan, feted at about 2 lots Madison Dinners considering that 2018 consisted of “billionaire CEOs, Supreme Court justices, political heavyweights and ambassadors.”

That report was released in May, days after the State Department’s inspector general, Steve Linick, was fired by Trump even as the internal guard dog was examining Pompeo’s declared abuse of a political appointee at the department to carry out individual jobs for himself and his other half.