Menendez Statement Following Briefing from State Department Inspector General

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued the following statement after the State Department Inspector General Steve A. Linick briefed Senate and House committee staff. At today’s briefing, Congressional staff was provided a number of unclassified documents related to now-debunked theories and false statements about the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, and the President’s political opponents.

“We are just beginning to examine the documents provided by the State Department Inspector General, but they appear to contain long-debunked theories and false statements about the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and one of President Trump’s political opponents.

“These documents provide further evidence of a concerted, external effort to conduct a disinformation campaign against a career U.S ambassador, who has been the subject of baseless attacks, including by the President himself.

“We also need to understand Secretary Pompeo’s role, given that it appears that he discussed these documents with at least one of his top aides and that the documents were distributed at the highest levels of the State Department.

“As I called for earlier today, Secretary Pompeo must recuse himself from any decision making related to the Trump-Ukraine scandal.

“We cannot afford to be distracted by false information. We must ensure the American people have a full accounting of how President Trump and Secretary Pompeo leveraged the tools of foreign policy for political gain.”

###