Pompeo confidant emerges as enforcer in fight over watchdog's firing
In his final year before he was abruptly fired as the State Department’s inspector general, Steve Linick kept running into a senior aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – and the encounters weren’t always pleasant.
At times, the aide, Undersecretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao, would act in “professional” manner, Linick told congressional investigators. “At other times,” Linick recalled, “he tried to bully me.”
Bulatao isn’t just any colleague of the secretary of State. He is one of Pompeo’s best friends, dating back to when they met at West Point as members of the class of 1986. The two have been business partners. And when Pompeo went to lead the CIA, then later jumped to State, he gave Bulatao top positions at both institutions.
In the months since joining State, Bulatao appears to have emerged as an enforcer and a shield for Pompeo in ways that are now drawing attention from Democrats probing Linick’s mid-May firing.
According to Linick, Bulatao tried to dissuade him from pursuing an investigation into how the secretary handled a Saudi arms sale, and at one point Bulatao implied he wanted to oversee a probe into Linick’s office.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pompeo-confidant-emerges-enforcer-fight-212524754.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
