WASHINGTON _ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decried leaks to the media about internal investigations into his office on Wednesday, calling allegations that the department's inspector general was fired in retaliation for his inquiries "patently false."
Pompeo, holding his first news conference since President Donald Trump terminated the department's ethics watchdog, Steve Linick, said the president did so at his recommendation, adding that he "frankly should have done it some time ago." But the nation's top diplomat bristled at more specific questions regarding the reason for Linick's firing.
Linick had been conducting two investigations that were potentially damaging to Pompeo. One centered on the Trump administration's decision to expedite arms sales to Saudi Arabia, according to New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
