Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spent approximately $65,000 on his “Madison Dinners,” roughly $21,000 more than initially disclosed, a watchdog says.
New documents obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Wednesday, amid its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department, reveal the Pompeo State Department spent approximately $65,000 on the “Madison Dinners,” more than $16,000 of which went toward custom “Madison Dinner” pens and journals to distribute to the high-profile attendees.
Pompeo’s Madison Dinners, held beginning in 2018 in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms in tribute to the fifth United States secretary of state, James Madison, were believed to have cost taxpayers approximately $40,000, according to a December 2020 report from CREW. This estimate included $10,433 on 400 engraved pens, more than $2,000 lower than the estimate shown in the new documents, with the discrepancy arising from a newly revealed September 2018 invoice stating the department returned 250 pens for additional imprinting.
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Though the dinners were held at the State Department, only 14% of nearly 500 invitees were foreign dignitaries, with 30% employed as political or government operatives and 23% associated with media or entertainment, according to an analysis by NBC News.
In May 2020, then-President Donald Trump fired former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, who was investigating whether Pompeo made his staffer run personal errands. Regarding Linick’s removal, a White House official told the Washington Examiner, “Secretary Pompeo recommenced the move, and President Trump agreed.”
Democrats opened an investigation into Linick’s firing, with then-House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel and Sen. Bob Menendez alleging it was “unprecedented.”
“President Trump’s unprecedented removal of Inspector General Linick is only his latest sacking of an inspector general, our government’s key independent watchdogs, from a federal agency,” they said in a press release on May 16, 2020. “We unalterably oppose the politically motivated firing of inspectors general and the president’s gutting of these critical positions.”
Pompeo returned fire against Menendez four days later, saying, “This is all coming through the office of Sen. Menendez.”
“I don’t get my ethics guidance from a man who was criminally prosecuted,” Pompeo continued. “His Senate colleagues, bipartisan, said basically that he was taking bribes.”
Menendez, who maintained his innocence throughout the legal proceedings, faced corruption charges related to gifts from a friend and campaign donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen. The prosecution led to a mistrial after the jury could not “reach a unanimous decision on any of the charges” in 2017, and Justice Department officials abandoned the prosecution after a judge dismissed seven of 18 charges against him for lack of evidence.
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CREW filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the State Department on July 30, 2020, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief following “the failure of Defendant U.S. Department of State (‘State’) to release records in response to CREW’s FOIA request for documents relating to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s ‘Madison Dinner’ series.”
The watchdog again filed suit against the department as well as the State Department’s Office of Inspector General on March 9 of this year, stating, “Between July 30 and December 8, 2020, CREW emailed the OIG several times to check on the status [of] its May 18 and May 22, 2020 requests, and the OIG stated it was still processing both requests.”
Representatives for the State Department did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
