TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A persistent buzz about Mike Pompeo stepping down as the top U.S. diplomat to run for an open Senate seat in Kansas has built to a roar as impeachment hearings into President Donald Trump have intensified scrutiny of the State Department.
The U.S. secretary of state was in Brussels on Wednesday, brushing off questions about the impeachment inquiry and dismissing speculation about how long hell stay in Trumps administration. Pompeo met with NATOs secretary general, while lawmakers heard testimony from Ambassador Gordon Sondland that he kept Pompeo informed of efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
Against the backdrop of impeachment, strain has set in between Trump and Pompeo. And Republicans already have speculated for months that Pompeo will resign to run for the Senate in his home state. Enthusiasm from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others regarding such a move has not cooled despite the impeachment hearings.
Many Republicans still see Pompeo as their best candidate for preventing the Kansas race from becoming competitive in a state where a Democrat hasnt won a Senate seat since 1932. While Democrats would certainly raise Pompeos ties to Trump and impeachment revelations, neither would likely hurt him with conservative voters who dominate GOP primaries.
I do think theres a chance he runs, said Alan Cobb, the Kansas Chamber of Commerces CEO, a long-active Republican who worked for Trumps 2016 campaign. The question comes down to not necessarily impeachment or the relationship with the president but the fundamental question of control of the United States Senate, and I think the landscape next year is murky.
Pompeo has repeatedly said he intends to stay on as secretary of state as long as Trump will have him and even declared a Senate run off the table this summer.
Time magazine reported this week that Pompeo has told three prominent Republicans in recent weeks that he plans to resign from the Trump administration to run for the Senate. The Republicans were not named, and State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters in Brussels that the story is completely false.
Pompeo has given no signal that he intends to leave his current job anytime soon, and aides say he has diplomatic travel planned through at least the end of January. En route to Brussels on Tuesday he suggested to reporters accompanying him that he would be returning to the city several more times as secretary of state.
He is 100% focused on being President Trumps secretary of state, Ortagus said.
For months, Pompeo has enjoyed an enviable position in Trumps Cabinet, his power largely unchecked as he frequently won foreign policy fights with then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and was viewed by the president as an aggressive defender. Among many in Trumps orbit, Pompeo was viewed as the most powerful Cabinet member.
But Trump more recently has suspiciously viewed the parade of diplomats and career foreign policy officials who alleged he inappropriately withheld military aid from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into a political foe. Trump was eager to paint the officials as Never Trumpers or part of the so-called Deep State conspiracy meant to unravel him, but a number of the officials were appointed by Trump at Pompeos direction.
The president has snapped about Pompeo delivering disloyal officials and has privately vented about the secretary of states hiring choices, according to three White House officials and Republicans close to the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
And there has been some grumbling among White House aides about Pompeos incessant flirtation with running for the Senate, according to the officials. Pompeos trips back to his home state four as of November have not gone unnoticed, and he has declined to definitively curtail talk about a run. That has led some in Trumps circle to wonder whether the secretary of state was plotting an escape strategy.
Yet Pompeo has continued to stay close to Trump. He declined to support State Department employees at a news conference, attacked the impeachment proceedings and refused to publicly break with the president. He does not seem in danger of losing his post, according to the officials.
In Brussels on Wednesday, Pompeo said he hadnt watched the impeachment hearings.
