WASHINGTON _ Congressional Democrats issued subpoenas on Monday for several top aides to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, including Toni Porter, his longtime aide from Kansas, over the firing of the State Department's inspector general.
Pompeo requested President Donald Trump fire the inspector general, Steve Linick, while he was investigating whether the secretary of state and his wife were using political appointees like Toni Porter to run personal errands on government time.
McClatchy was first to report in May that Porter was a subject of an inquiry in the inspector general's office. At least two investigations are known to have been ongoing into Pompeo's conduct at the time of Linick's firing.
Porter served as Pompeo's district director when he served in Congress, and followed him to Washington when he entered the Trump administration, first as head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
A whistleblower report made public in July and first reported by McClatchy confirmed that at least one investigation remains open even after Linick's departure.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel of New York, House Oversight and Reform chairwoman Carolyn Maloney of New York and Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued the subpoenas.
"The administration continues to cover up the real reasons for Mr. Linick's firing by stonewalling the committees' investigation and refusing to engage in good faith," the Democratic lawmakers said in a joint statement. "That stonewalling has made today's subpoenas necessary, and the committees will continue to pursue this investigation to uncover the truth that the American people deserve."
In addition to Porter, the lawmakers issued subpoenas for Under Secretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao, Acting State Department Legal Adviser Marik String, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Michael Miller.
In a statement to McClatchy, a State Department spokesperson said that the Democratic accusations were "outragous" and that claims of stonewalling are "egregiously inaccurate."
"The Department has been offering good faith proposals to satisfy their oversight inquiry," the spokesperson said. "We have offered a briefing, an open hearing before both House Committees with the Under Secretary for Management, a briefing for Members on the Office of the Inspector General's review of the implementation of the Arms Export Control Act, and we have provided a very clear path for every individual requested to engage with the Committees. All of the offers have been rejected, manipulated by the Committees, or outright ignored."
