Robbie Gramer
@RobbieGramer
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National Security Reporter @Politico Send tips, hate mail to rgramer ( at ) https://t.co/IvxBhQLj6f or robbiegramer ( at ) https://t.co/YV6LSUL6z3
DC via Pacific NW
Joined September 2010
He's not dead, he left the consulate we have evidence. OK, he has disappeared. OK, he may be dead. OK, he's dead but we didn't do it. OK, he's dead, but it was a rogue group who worked for us. OK he's dead and we did it, but it was only because a 1 vs. 15 fight broke out.
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Trumps’ “VOICE” Hotline set up for people to report on crime from illegal aliens was reportedly overloaded with calls about space aliens.
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Thanks to a near-broken confirmation process, the US does not have a U.S. Ambassador in:.- Israel.- Egypt.- Lebanon.- Oman.- Kuwait.- No confirmed top USAID official for the Middle East for nearly 3 years.-No State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism for nearly 2 years.
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NEW: Democratic senators Shaheen and Reed ask Pentagon watchdog and Justice Department to investigate Elon Musk's contacts with Russians given Musk's security clearance and SpaceX defense contracts:
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!!! Now Chairman of House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Eliot Engel says the State Inspector General was fired after opening an investigation into Secretary Pompeo. “Mr. Linick’s firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation”
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SCOOP: There is a new dissent cable filed by scores of State Dept officials after Capitol Hill violence. They rebuke Pompeo for not condemning Trump & urge him to consider 25th amendment consultations. Largely unprecedented move in State's ~232 yr history
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Am told by State Department official familiar with the matter that Finland is not part of Russia.
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🚨 New Pew poll:. 74% of Americans view the war in Ukraine as important to US national interests . 43% describe it as “very important”. 59% of Americans describe the war in Ukraine as important to them *personally* when asked .
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Ronald Neumann, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, told me: “There’s a difference between the Biden decision to leave, and the Biden execution of the decision. The decision to leave is arguably justifiable. The execution of that decision is a lamentable disaster.”.
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“Paying a porn star hush money would have ended any other presidency”
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Trump: "No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly"
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Today in dystopian medical care news: An Army veteran has his prosthetic legs repossessed after the VA refused to pay for them. He earned a Bronze Star in both Vietnam and Iraq
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This screenshot is from an episode where Lisa Simpson goes Washington and sees how petty and dysfunctional US political leaders are after witnessing one take a bribe, so she tears up her essay on what makes America great.
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State Department issues a sweeping statement on "upcoming elections in Africa," doesn't clarify which of the continent's 54 countries its referring to
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NEW: 8 senators are going to introduce a bill to "prevent any president from leaving NATO" this afternoon. This bill, from 4 Dems and 4 Republicans, come amid fears Trump could legally unilaterally withdraw from NATO without any Congressional input.
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I'm old enough to remember way back to 24 hours ago, when the Russian ambassador to the US told @margbrennan "We are not trying to take any territories of foreign countries. I would like to confirm that Donbas and Luhansk is a part of Ukraine"
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Congresswoman refers to Guam, a US territory, as a foreign country that doesn't deserve US aid .
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We never stopped
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This whole story is based on a quote about ‘PC meetings’ meaning ‘political correctness’ .But doesn’t ‘PC’ mean ‘principles committee’ in the context of WH meetings?
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SCOOP: Trump's South Africa ambassador, a successful handbag designer, forced out her top career diplomat at the embassy as she tried to elevate her son to a senior embassy post, officials tell me. Part of a trend of Trump envoys pushing out their #2's
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When I was in South Korea recently, these Stand with Ukraine decals were on taxi cabs all over Seoul
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NEW: Lithuania has expelled Russia's ambassador and downgraded diplomatic ties, in response Russia's "atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces in various occupied Ukrainian cities" — Lithuania's foreign minister.
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Trump says he is is cutting off $500 million in aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. But critics say he lacks authority to cut funds and measure will undercut efforts to stop migration north from Central America.
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I know it’s been a hectic news day, but don’t miss this story on the expert that Trump’s top China adviser, Peter Navarro, has cited frequently in his past books and studies. His name is Ron Vara. He doesn’t exist. Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro.
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Official response from Pompeo about his NPR interview. Haven’t seen anything like this before with a State Department seal on it:
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The State Department's watchdog issued a scathing report on how Trump appointees treated career State Department employees in the bureau that oversees international organizations
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The U.S. Senate has voted 100-0 to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and enact a total ban the import of Russian oil . “Ending normal trade relations hammers home that Putin has made Russia into a full-fledged pariah state" said Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of finance committee.
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Scooplet: U.S. ambassador to Estonia resigns today, citing Trump's anti-Europe tirades in private message to friends.
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Ep 1-6: Keri waits for months for Senate confirmation to start job .Ep 7: After finally getting confirmed, Keri realizes she can't actually do job because the NSC is constantly micromanaging the crisis from DC .Ep 8: Keri quits government in frustration, joins think tank.
Keri Russell will star in & exec produce The Diplomat, an 8-ep political thriller where she'll play a career diplomat who lands a high-profile job she's unsuited for in the midst of an international crisis, creating tectonic implications for her marriage and her political future.
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MSNBC has done 455 Stormy Daniels segments in the last year — but none on U.S. war in Yemen
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NEW: The U.S. Senate has just overwhelmingly voted in favor of admitting Finland and Sweden to the NATO alliance by a vote of 95-1-1.
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As Hungary's Viktor Orban traveled to Florida to meet Trump, Sen. McConnell tells @AndrewDesiderio he has been pleading with conservatives to stop idolizing Orbán. "this guy’s completely in bed with the Chinese and the Russians".
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41-year old Iraqi man dies after the US deported him under new Trump admin policies. He came to the US as a young child and never knew Iraq before being deported. Here are his final days before dying, reported by @tedhesson & @nahaltoosi:
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David Dushman, the last surviving Allied soldier involved in the liberation of Auschwitz, has died. He was 98.
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Almost a year ago today, @mollymotoole interviewed Gen. John Kelly, who warned generals to stay away from politics.
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A stunning hack, the largest in US history. China can tap into any phone and unsecured text convervation it wants of *all Americans.* It targeted Trump and JD Vance's phones. We ask a basic question: "Um. How the hell is this not getting more coverage??".
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Update: a spokesperson said 'still looking into this.' So State Dept is still looking into where the Secretary of State was this weekend
It's kind of telling that 4 hours ago I asked the State Dept simply where Tillerson was this weekend and they still havent gotten back to me.
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NEW: Former top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway has registered as a foreign agent to lobby for Ukraine for $50,000 a month through a foundation run by Ukrainian billionaire industrialist Victor Pinchuk.
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Joint announcement coming shortly from the US, Sudan, and Israel that will declare Sudan and Israel are formally renormalizing diplomatic relations.
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Scoop: Biden blocks both Turkey and Hungary from attending its upcoming Summit for Democracy. U.S. is becoming increasingly worried about democratic backsliding in both of these NATO countries. Latest story with @JackDetsch
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UPDATE: The plot thickens. U.S. embassy in Moscow briefly put up statement condemning Russia for the downing of #MH17 airplane yesterday. But then it was quickly deleted. Scoop on anti-Russia statement being spiked by State Dept. after Trump-Putin summit:
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Today Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a phone call. The Russian Foreign Ministry released a readout of the call. Meanwhile, as @nahaltoosi has pointed out, radio silence on readout from the State Department.
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Five years ago this week President Trump canceled a state visit to Denmark after Trump tried to buy Greenland from Denmark and Denmark said no
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Multiple State Department officials reached out to me after this unprompted with their reactions to this. One senior US diplomat says: “This is just embarrassing”.
Official response from Pompeo about his NPR interview. Haven’t seen anything like this before with a State Department seal on it:
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New: A State Department official overseeing US arms transfers abroad has resigned in protest of the Biden administration’s policy on the Israel-Gaza conflict. He posted his resignation letter on his LinkedIn, in full here:
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NEW: The State Department has put a temporary hold on funding for UNRWA, the main UN agency in Gaza, following allegations that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks in Israel
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New story: Western allies are beginning to deliver armor & heavy weapons to Ukraine, in a shift from the early days of the war. •T-72 tanks.•RM-70 multiple launch rocket systems.•MI-17 helicopters .•M113 APCs .•Switchblade “kamikaze” drones & more.
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"A troop of monkeys in India attacked a medical official and snatched away blood samples of patients who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, authorities said on Friday."
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NEW: Germany's reticence to send tanks to Ukraine causing growing rift between Berlin and eastern European powers. “If Germany would give to Ukraine proportionally what we have given to Ukraine, this war would be over,” Latvia's Defense Minister says
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I know people are numb to the constant barrage of news, but I’d like to repeat: 140,000 children under 5 will die by this year’s end in Yemen. That’s the equivalent of about 6,090 U.S. kindergarten classes of children dead.
Document of the week: A grim new U.N. study of the war in Yemen. By the end of this year, some 233,000 people will have died in Yemen as a result of the war between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition, including 140,000 children under the age of 5
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State prepared a fiery statement rebuking Russia on the 4th anniversary of the downing of MH17 amid the Trump-Putin firestorm. The statement never went out. Here’s a draft copy. My latest scoop w/ @ak_mack
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Ret. Gen. Mark Milley: “Don’t lecture me about women in combat…Women have been in combat, and it doesn't matter if that 7.62 [caliber round] hits you in the chest. No one gives a shit if it's a woman or a guy to pull that trigger, you're still dead.”.
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I’m old enough to remember when there was another country on these joint statements by the West.
NEW: joint statement from Canada and the EU on the situation in Hong Kong
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Remarkable internal State Department email: An office that coordinates US foreign aid now directing American embassies to urgently ask other countries for help securing medical supplies for the US.
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It's incredible how there's always one for everything:
President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them,not nonsense.
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A bunch of rich people from California, NYC, and other places flew to their vacation homes in Sun Valley, Idaho and now a rural Idaho community with only two ICU beds and a single ventilator has to deal with ~half of the state's COVID-19 cases .
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Whistleblower complaint at the center of impeachment probe is released. These parts caught my eye, along with the indications that now the State Department has been irrevocably dragged into the coming political storm:
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Imagine what State Dept. would be saying if there were reports of this journalist being abducted, murdered, and dismembered inside an Iranian consulate.
Six days after #JamaKhashoggi's disappearance, US State Dept sticks to its one-liner. Spokesperson says: "We are not in a position to confirm these reports, but we are closely following the situation.".
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this is the first transatlantic crisis of the biden presidency the only question now is whether biden will invoke NATO article 5 to protect meghan.
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McMaster coming out swinging against Russia at @AtlanticCouncil dinner right now. Last time he did this (Munich conference in February), Trump rebuked him on Twitter. But he only has 6 days left on the job now.
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New: Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has "has sent a cable of congratulation to President-elect Joe Biden on winning the presidential elections in the United States of America" Saudi Embassy in Washington says.
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A fmr US ambassador told me:“If you wanted to actually set out to break American diplomacy, this is how you’d do it"
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Trudeau: Canadians want answers, I want answers. That means closure, transparency accountability, and justice. And this government will not rest until we get that.
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Four out of four living ex-U.S. presidents are now fact-checking the current U.S. president, who falsely claimed some of them told him they wanted to build a border wall.
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After months of impasse, the Senate finally confirmed ~3 dozen US ambassador nominees last night. It came after Sen. Ted Cruz agreed to lift his blanket hold on State nominees, centering on a feud with Biden on Biden’s policy over a Russian gas pipeline project, Nord Stream 2.
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The Trump administration is three weeks late on Russia sanctions. Now it’s killed the office that coordinates them.
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Same-sex couples already inside of the United States could go to city hall and get married. But they could potentially be exposed to prosecution if they return to a country that criminalizes homosexuality or same-sex marriages.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister addressing the UN after Russian diplomats leave the room: . “I also noted today that Russian diplomats flee almost as aptly as Russian soldiers”.
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New: Members of Afghanistan’s former elite army commando corps say they are being contacted with offers to join the Russian military to fight in Ukraine . from @lynnekodonnell.
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There has noticeably been no statement yet from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Alexei Navalny, the prominent Russian opposition figure and Putin critic who fell into a coma after allegedly being poisoned.
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New scooplet from me: Ahead of Russia Trip, Pompeo Squelches Criticism of Moscow: State Department quietly takes down a statement rebuking Russia for coup attempt in Montenegro .
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Sen. Chris Murphy in new statement urges the Senate to clear the backlog of national security nominees: . “This is an all hands on deck moment in history, and the administration needs a Senate-confirmed American diplomat present in every capital in the region as soon as possible”.
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Call Your Mother could blunt the unchallenged rise of Tatte if it allocates enough of its GDP to defense spending.
Foxtrot closing all locations means Tatte’s power will go unchecked. Get ready for the Tattetorship.
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“For 16 years, we have supported NATO membership, and now it’s possible. Thanks, Putin.”
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NEW: White House confirms it conducted a counter-terror operation in Yemen that “successfully eliminated” Qasim al-Rimi, a founder and the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. More here from @laraseligman and me:
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Interesting that Joe Biden is now issuing a statement on Belarus. Presidential campaign starting to signal what its foreign policy would look like
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2017 Mad Libs
Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher brings Holocaust denier to meeting with Rand Paul to discuss Julian Assange
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Today I asked Bush's former CIA & NSA director if Trump was endangering national security. His answer: "Yes.".
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New: Acting Pentagon policy chief James Anderson issued his resignation today after clashes w/ White House. In his resignation letter, he writes: "Now, as ever, our long-term success depends on adhering to the U.S. Constitution all public servants swear to support and defend".
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Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen is furious with Biden's Israel policy, telling me his policy has "failed" and the "carnage and destruction of Gaza will forever be a stain on [Biden's] record".
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This banner has now been taken down at the request of Trump and top State Dept leadership, as @nwadhams and @JenniferJJacobs report.
The U.S. Embassy stands in solidarity with fellow Americans grieving and peacefully protesting to demand positive change. Our #BlackLivesMatter banner shows our support for the fight against racial injustice and police brutality as we strive to be a more inclusive & just society.
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Just over a month ago, Nippon Steel hired former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to help advise on this deal.
Scoop: Biden prepares to block Nippon Steel acquisition of U.S. Steel, sources tell @davidjlynch & me. Story tk.
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Hard to capture in words the fury and shock I heard from a half dozen current and former US diplomats I spoke to over these latest revelations, some of whom worked with Yovanovitch. Even with State at the center of this impeachment drama for months, they all seemed stunned.
explosive new evidence released on the eve of the impeachment trial appears to show Giuliani associates surveilling US ambassador to Ukraine amid smear campaign to oust her. My latest, with @ak_mack .
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Been talking to current & former diplomats all day about the UK ambassador's cables. Every single one has pointed out the irony of Trump freezing out a foreign diplomat for confidentially criticizing him, while he calls foreign officials dishonest, weak, pathetic, etc on Twitter.
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The group of African Union ambassadors to the UN met in an emergency session on Friday. They are “extremely appalled at and condemn the racist and xenophobic remarks attributed to the president” according to memo obtained by Foreign Policy.
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Holy crap!!! Commerce secretary shorting stock on a company he’s involved with because he knows a negative story about him & the company is coming out.
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As one State Dept official put it to me today: “I mean if a country is asking us if they’re considered a shithole or not that’s a pretty grim situation”.
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🚨 Sue Mi Terry, a US security expert who had worked on the White House National Security Council, has been indicted on U.S. charges she worked as an unregistered agent for South Korea's government in exchange for luxuries and other gifts, according to a newly unsealed indictment.
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Stiller is a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency and he is testifying on Syria alongside David Miliband, chief of the International Rescue Committee.
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1/ Spoken to a lot of career diplomats in the past day who are very upset Pompeo is addressing the RNC while on official State travel overseas, potentially violating State Dept rules and overriding historic precedence on Secretaries of State avoiding domestic politics.
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They could have one room for countries that meet 2% that’s air conditioned and one room for countries that don’t meet 2% that’s not air conditioned and NATO spending targets would be fixed in 30 minutes or less I guarantee it.
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This is an issue @columlynch and I have been reporting on for over a year. Among the things the Inspector General report details: Hostile work environment, State career officials accused of being 'traitors', discrimination, mismanagement. Full report here:
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so some of the upcoming national elections I'm tracking are in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, and Tanzania. Just to put a finer point on this, one could roughly compare the distance between Cote D'Ivoire and Tanzania to the distance between Norway and Iraq.
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Unnamed Pentagon officials blast use of anonymous sources
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The UN Security Council voted on a draft resolution condemning Russia's annexation of 4 Ukrainian territories . Russia vetoed it, unsurprising . BUT China abstained rather than supporting Russia by vetoing it.
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Awkward situation at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today. As the US envoy for Sudan testified on how little attention Sudan gets, senators cycled out due to conflicting schedules, leaving for long periods only 1 senator in the hearing room (and 20 empty seats).
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