WASHINGTON — State Department employees were asked to prepare then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for political events in Kansas as he was flirting with a run for a U.S. Senate seat there in 2019, rankling government staff who saw the requests as ethics violations, according to a previously unreported whistleblower complaint and emails obtained by McClatchy.
The documents provide fresh insight into Pompeo politicking behind the scenes during a period when the secretary was engaged in a flurry of hushed donor meetings and controversial visits to Kansas.
Newly obtained emails from that period show the former secretary’s wife, Susan Pompeo, asking State Department staff for help organizing political events in their adopted home state, connecting with local companies and drawing a crowd to one of his events.
