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Home Front: WoT
US paying $2 million a month to protect Pompeo, ex-aide from Iranian threats
2022-03-13
[IsraelTimes] The US State Department says it’s paying more than $2 million per month to provide 24-hour security to former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and a former top aide, both of whom face "serious and credible" threats from Iran.

The department told Congress in a report that the cost of protecting Pompeo and former Iran
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...
envoy Brian Hook between August 2021 and February 2022 amounted to $13.1 million. The report, dated February 14 and marked "sensitive but unclassified," was obtained today by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.

Pompeo and Hook led the Trump administration’s "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, and the report says US intelligence assesses that the threats to them have remained constant since they left government and could intensify.

The threats have persisted even as US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. An incredibly corrupt version of Jar-Jar Binks, only well into his dotage. The dumbass who abandoned Afghanistan....
’s administration has been engaged in indirect negotiations with Iran over a US return to a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.

As a former secretary of state, Pompeo was automatically given 180 days of protection by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security after leaving office. But that protection has been repeatedly extended in 60-day increments by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken due to "a serious and credible threat from a foreign power or agent of a foreign power arising from duties performed by former Secretary Pompeo while employed by the department," the report said.

Hook, who along with Pompeo was often the public face of the Trump administration’s imposition of crippling sanctions against Iran, was granted the special protection by Blinken for the same reason as Pompeo immediately after he left government service. That has also been repeatedly renewed in 60-day increments.

The latest 60-day extensions will expire soon and the State Department, in conjunction with the Director of National Intelligence, must determine by March 16 if the protection should be extended again, according to the report.

The report was prepared because the special protection budget will run out in June and require a new infusion of money if extensions are deemed necessary.
Posted by:trailing wife

#3   after he's shoved out the door

Figuratively speaking, of course. No one said anything about flights of stairs.
Posted by: SteveS   2022-03-13 14:54  

#2  Precedence. Blinken wants the same after he's shoved out the door
Posted by: Frank G   2022-03-13 14:21  

#1  I am kind of surprised Blinken would continue to extend this protection. Pompeo would seem like a potentially dangerous opponent to this administration, so what would be the loss if he got whacked?
Posted by: Glenmore   2022-03-13 13:35  

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