President Trump’s impeachment defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz said he disapproved of the president’s heaping praise on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for how he treated an NPR reporter.
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly interviewed Pompeo, 56, last Friday. The interview ended after the reporter repeatedly asked questions about Ukraine and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Then, during a private moment that Pompeo claimed was off the record, he yelled her and asked if she could find Ukraine on an unmarked map of the world.
The president made light of the situation during Tuesday’s unveiling of his administration’s Middle East peace plan. While Trump praised Pompeo for doing “a good job on her,” Dershowitz could be seen patting the former Central Intelligence Agency chief on the back. Dershowitz, a former Harvard law professor, was then asked about the moment during a CNN appearance later that day.
“Because I like Mike Pompeo’s views on the Middle East,” Dershowitz said, explaining why he patted Pompeo on the back. “I thoroughly disapprove of the way he has reportedly treated a reporter. I don’t think reporters should ever be treated that way, in any way, and I don’t think presidents should say that it’s a good thing to treat a reporter [that way]. … But I like Mike Pompeo’s views on the Middle East.”
“But you patted him on the back, you patted him on the back when the president was praising him for attacking the reporter,” network legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin countered.
“I think you’re reading too much into that. I had patted him on the back a dozen times when we talked about the Middle East. So that’s what my pat was intended to encourage,” Dershowitz responded. “He’s being attacked, and he’s being criticized. I want to show my support. Because he’s a great secretary of state and he’s done great things for the peace process in the Middle East. If he can help to bring about peace in the Middle East, I’ll forgive him his rudeness to a reporter.”
After NPR published the interview and Kelly detailed Pompeo’s yelling at her, the State Department released a statement blasting the reporter and outlet collectively and arguing that his private moment with Kelly was off the record, which the publication disputes.
Then, on Monday, the State Department blocked a different NPR reporter from flying with Pompeo on his upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia. The State Department Correspondents’ Association accused Pompeo of “retaliating” against the outlet.
“The removal of Michele [Kelemen], who was in rotation as the radio pool reporter, comes days after Secretary Pompeo harshly criticized the work of an NPR host,” SDCA President Shaun Tandon said in a statement. “We can only conclude that the State Department is retaliating against National Public Radio as a result of this exchange.”
NPR executives sent a letter to Pompeo on Tuesday, asking for an explanation of why their reporter was taken off the trip as the designated radio pool reporter.
“If we do not receive a satisfactory response from you justifying this decision before tomorrow, when the trip is scheduled to depart, we, like the [State Department Correspondents’ Association] will have no choice but to conclude that Ms. Kelemen was removed from the trip in retaliation for the content of NPR’s reporting,” NPR president John Lansing and editorial director Nancy Barnes wrote.
