Pompeo goes to Ukraine as impeachment cloud hangs over Trump

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo will "reaffirm US support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity" when he visits. PHOTO: AP

WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) - US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo arrives in Ukraine this week to voice support for the embattled nation, a message muddled by Rudy Giuliani's latest visit there in search of dirt on Joe Biden and by the pending Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

Pompeo will "reaffirm US support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity" when he visits Friday, the State Department said in announcing travels that will also take him to Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Cyprus.

But even as the top US diplomat, Pompeo may struggle to convince his counterparts in Kyiv that he really runs America's Ukraine policy after he acquiesced to demands from Giuliani - and Trump - including the purging of an ambassador who resisted efforts to pressure Ukraine's new president.

Pompeo's visit will make him the highest-ranking administration official to travel to Ukraine since Trump's July call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy evolved into an impeachment debacle. At stake is whether the US withheld support in an effort to press for a probe into Biden, a potential opponent in the 2020 election.

But Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer who met with him as recently as Dec 21 in Florida, was back in Kyiv this month pushing the discredited theory - embraced by the president - that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind US election interference in 2016.

Hundreds of hours of debate and testimony in the impeachment saga haven't clarified US policy toward Ukraine. Senior officials in Kyiv - who avoided Giuliani on his last visit - may have reason to question whether the Trump administration sees their nation primarily as a fledgling democracy and bulwark against Russian aggression, or just a pawn in a political effort to attack Democrats ahead of the 2020 election.

Pompeo and other officials say Ukraine - which has been in conflict with Russia since it invaded Crimea in 2014 - is a national security priority and point to the delivery of almost US$400 million (S$539 million) in aid as proof. But critics says the actions of Trump and his personal lawyer outside normal diplomatic channels, including holding up that aid for months, suggest all they cared about was obtaining political dirt.

"The idea that this administration has prioritised or dealt effectively with the Ukraine crisis is a political fiction," said Andrew Weiss, a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The priority of Ukraine on the diplomatic front basically disappeared on day one of the Trump administration."

Pompeo will have to navigate the divide between official and unofficial US policy without upsetting Trump or providing more fodder to the president's critics. He ensured his visit would be a little less awkward by relieving acting Ambassador William Taylor - his hand-picked envoy who provided damaging criticism during the impeachment inquiry - of duty on Jan 1, a few days before Taylor says he was scheduled to come home anyway.

Zelenskiy's administration - which still covets a White House meeting that Trump has withheld - made it clear it welcomes Pompeo's visit.

"The US is our strategic partner and we are very grateful for its bipartisan support in all sectors," Iuliia Mendel, Zelenskiy's spokesman, said in a phone interview. "We hope we will expand our cooperation. We are glad that such a high-ranking official from the US will visit us. And some time in the future we will be happy to visit the US" But the secretary of state still has his work cut out for him.

Testimony in the impeachment inquiry indicates Pompeo had little control over Giuliani's efforts. Pompeo prefers to emphasise the eventual delivery of the military aid that had been held up. Beyond that, he has deflected questions about the president's pressure to probe the Bidens by saying he supports efforts to clamp down on corruption.

And Pompeo has stonewalled and scoffed at questions from reporters about his role in Ukraine policy, including his acceptance of the demands to oust Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, a widely-praised envoy who was recalled to Washington in May following complaints by Giuliani.

The ambiguity is deliberate: Pompeo figured out long ago how to survive the turmoil of Trump's cabinet, becoming his longest-serving senior national security aide. The secretary of state refused to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents in the impeachment inquiry and declined to offer public statements of support for employees who did choose to testify.

That doesn't necessarily mean that he agreed with the president or Giuliani. Witness testimony shows that Pompeo "rolled his eyes" when told of Giuliani's involvement in Ukraine, perhaps mindful that he had little ability to restrain someone so close to the president. But that testimony also showed the limits of Pompeo's power.

"The rolling eyes detail is perfect: Is there any world in which he's actually going to do anything that would potentially put him on a different side of Trump?" said Thomas Wright, director of the Centre on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. "Everything points to the idea that he didn't do anything meaningful to push back."

The conflicting role of Ukraine in US foreign policy is emblematic of the broader chaos in diplomacy under Trump, where the president's suspicions and instincts often overwhelm formal policy. The president repeatedly praises US rivals and autocrats like Kim Jong Un of North Korea and Vladimir Putin of Russia as friends, while dismissing historic allies.

Many State Department employees were frustrated that Pompeo - who often boasts that he's put the "swagger" back in the demoralised department he inherited -failed to stand up for Yovanovitch, Taylor or other career officials pulled into the impeachment vortex. After Taylor's testimony, Pompeo stayed silent as Trump labelled him a "Never Trumper," and the diplomat came in for insults and mockery from the president's allies.

Taylor's term as temporary ambassador was due to end in weeks but, according to a person familiar with the matter, Pompeo had his senior counsellor, Ulrich Brechbuhl, tell him to leave the job before the secretary of state arrives.

While Taylor wasn't given a reason, he and those around him have drawn the conclusion that Pompeo doesn't want to be photographed with a man who was the target of so much presidential scorn.

"The position that our colleagues in the foreign service were put in was impossible," said Eric Rubin, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the diplomatic corps' union. "No one who was put in that situation was happy about it. This is a very uncomfortable thing for people who are nonpolitical, nonpartisan foreign service officers."

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