Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said on Friday that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “did all of [former President] Donald Trump’s bidding” while serving in the role.
Kinzinger told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he and Pompeo, who previously served as a congressman from Kansas, are friends and worked together while they were both in Congress, and they agreed on foreign policy issues. He said Pompeo did “a good job” while serving as director of the CIA but completely committed himself to Trump after he joined the Cabinet.
Kinzinger, who is one of two Republicans serving on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, made his remarks following Pompeo meeting with the committee last week.
Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that the committee asked him about Cabinet discussions of invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which would declare the president incapable of fulfilling the responsibilities of the office. He said the committee was “chasing witches,” and he did not have any “serious” discussions about using the amendment.
Reports indicated that multiple members of Trump’s Cabinet discussed invoking the 25th Amendment in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.
Kinzinger said Pompeo is trying to run for president but knows he cannot attack Trump and run, so he is hoping that Trump does not run, and he can take Trump’s place.
“So, he’s trying to walk a tightrope,” he said. “That is somebody without a moral center, and he had a moral center. So, I don’t know what happened when he went off to the administration.”