Pompeo declines to defend Marie Yovanovitch and Bill Taylor after saying he 'always defends State Department employees'

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is speaking out about why he's not speaking out.

Pompeo gave one of the Trump administration's rare press conferences Monday to announce another pro-Israel policy and was immediately hit with impeachment questions. Specifically, Pompeo was asked about one current and one former State Department employee — and refused to defend them even though he said earlier that's something he "always" does.

After his announcement, Pompeo was asked to respond to accusations that he didn't fully support State Department employees, including the fact that he didn't issue a statement of support to Marie Yovanovitch when she was ousted as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. "I'm not going to get into the issues surrounding the Democrat impeachment inquiry," Pompeo said, though when asked again, he said he would "always defend" them.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Pompeo didn't acknowledge that he had refused to defend one specific employee, in this case Yovanovitch. He then declined to say whether he had confidence in ambassador William Taylor, who replaced Yovanovitch, after he provided damaging testimony against the Trump administration in last week's impeachment hearings.

The conference's main purpose was to announce the U.S. would no longer automatically consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be "inconsistent with international law," as they were found under a 1978 State Department legal opinion. It's yet another affirmation of the Trump administration's pro-Israel stance, and is sure to be opposed by Palestinians and their supporters.