WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is refusing to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unless it holds hearings on five senior State Department nominees, including the administration's new ambassador to Ukraine.
In a letter to Sen. James Risch, the Idaho Republican who heads the committee, Pompeo said he would testify July 20 if Risch proceeds "with all of the engagements as proposed in the attached calendar."
The previously undisclosed letter, which was sent in late June, includes a spreadsheet with suggested dates and times of hearings for Trump administration nominees for the ambassadors to Ukraine and Peru, the State Department legal adviser, an undersecretary and an assistant secretary.
"I cannot overstate the importance of filling these critical leadership positions," Pompeo wrote. "I am disappointed it has come to this, but all these nominees have been pending in Congress for weeks or months."
The letter amounts to a challenge to congressional oversight, particularly considering that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is controlled by Pompeo's fellow Republicans. But he has tangled with congressional leaders for months, and especially with New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the committee.
After the pandemic made a Pompeo appearance untenable in the spring, Risch essentially gave up trying to schedule a hearing for him to testify about the State Department's 2021 budget, an appearance that has previously been required of a secretary of state. A top Risch aide told Politico at the time that the chairman wanted to preserve "political capital."
The last time Pompeo appeared before the Senate was in April 2019.
Pompeo largely refused to cooperate with the Ukraine impeachment inquiry before the House, where he once was a representative from Kansas. And he has subsequently clashed with Menendez and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, over Pompeo's decision this summer to fire State Department Inspector General Steve Linick.
Pompeo demanded hearings for Keith Dayton, the nominee for ambassador to Ukraine; Lisa Kenna, the nominee for ambassador to Peru; legal adviser nominee C.J. Mahoney; Western Hemisphere Affairs assistant secretary nominee Carlos Trujillo; and Marshall Billingslea, the nominee for undersecretary for arms control and international security.
A person familiar with the matter said the letter was the culmination of a lengthy back-and-forth between Risch and Pompeo over nominees and Pompeo's refusal to provide documents about them that committee members including Menendez have requested.
The State Department declined to comment late Friday, as did a spokesperson for Menendez.