It was a gift from the Japanese government to the then Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo: A sinfully expensive bottle of whiskey has disappeared from the Ministry – and has called the Inspector General into action.
The US authorities are investigating the whereabouts of a bottle of whiskey worth almost six thousand dollars that Japan gave to then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A July 22 statement from the State Department’s chief of protocol listing gifts from foreign governments to U.S. federal officials in 2019 stated that the Pompeo whiskey was given by the Japanese government on June 24, 2019, according to Reuters news agency citing documents released by the US government on Wednesday.
In the notes, the $ 5,800 bottle is listed with the comment “whereabouts unknown”. A footnote also reads: “The ministry is looking into the matter and conducting an investigation.”
Inspector General to investigate the whereabouts of the whiskey
US government officials are allowed to keep gifts less than $ 390. Whatever is above, they have the option of handing over the presents to the National Archives or another state institution, or purchasing them for personal use by refunding the value to the Ministry of Finance. According to the New York Times, the sum was never transferred to the State Department. The authorities have therefore asked their inspector general to find out what happened to the whiskey.
The newspaper report said it was unclear whether Pompeo ever received the gift since he was traveling in Saudi Arabia on June 24, 2019 when Japanese officials handed it over to the State Department. A lawyer Pompeos told the newspaper that the former foreign minister and CIA chief knew nothing about the whereabouts of the expensive whiskey.
Pompeo was accused in a government oversight report in April of violating federal ethics rules governing the use of taxpayer-funded funds. Accordingly, he and his wife are said to have asked employees of the Foreign Ministry to do personal tasks more than 100 times. The 57-year-old denied the allegations, claiming that the report was politically motivated and full of factual errors.
Pompeo was US Secretary of State until Donald Trump left the presidency on January 20. He is considered one of the few Republicans with ambitions for the presidency in 2024, but has not yet confirmed this himself.
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