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REWIND: Mike Pompeo said WHAT about January 6?

REWIND: Mike Pompeo said WHAT about January 6?

REWIND: Mike Pompeo said WHAT about January 6?

In what could be described as delusional at best, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insists that the day this nation’s democracy was attacked was a “peaceful transition of power” between the Trump and Biden administrations.

“We delivered a peaceful transition on January 6, 2021, exactly as our Constitution requires,” Pompeo said in an interview with Sky News.

Though he manages to condemn the violence, the former Secretary of State stops short of criticizing the ex-President.

Make no mistake about it, that night America also showed its strength. Vice President Pence finished the election. We had a peaceful transition of power. – Pompeo

Stumping his new book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, Pompeo glosses over the violence of the day when asked why the former Trump-appointed Secretary failed to elaborate on the insurrection and ex-President Trump’s attempt to overturn President-Elect Joe Biden’s win.

One of the few Trump administration officials to remain in his role for the entire four years, Pompeo refuses to place the blame squarely where it belongs – on his former boss – but instead alleges security officials failed to do their job.

“There was a bad day at the Capitol,” he said. “The security team there failed to prevent these guys from rioting there.”

Pompeo received backlash for statements he made a week after the November 2020 election that some believe added legitimacy to Trump’s Big Lie while casting doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s presidential victory.

In an interview with Fox News, he said emphatically that there would be a “smooth transition” – to another Trump term that is.

According to Pompeo, his comments were taken out of context, before circling back to claims of election irregularities.

“To read the whole statement I made that day, I spoke decently about the United States of America,” he said in Thursday’s interview. “There are lots of anomalies in our election. And we can’t have that in the United States.”

Last month, Pompeo was condemned by Washington Post CEO, Fred Ryan, for comments made surrounding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In his book, the former Trump administration official accused Khashoggi of having close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and grieving the death of the 9/11 terrorist Osama bin Laden.

“He didn’t deserve to die, but we need to be clear about who he was,” Pompeo wrote.

“It is shocking and disappointing to see Mike Pompeo’s book so outrageously misrepresent the life and work of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,” Ryan responded. 

Rumored to be a GOP contender in 2024, the last thing this country needs is a President who doesn’t respect this country’s democratic process, spreads falsehoods that undermine the stability of our institutions and fails to protect the rights and lives of our journalists.

Original reporting by Zoë Richards at NBC News. 

Follow Ty Ross on Twitter @cooltxchick

Ty Ross
News journalist for Occupy Democrats.

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