A leading Democratic lawmaker asked the CIA for answers on an undisclosed advisory board Secretary of State Mike Pompeo organized during his time as head of the spy agency.
Rep. Stephen Lynch, the head of the oversight panel's national security subcommittee, expressed concern that the activities of the board may have been inappropriate and that its members were more likely to be wealthy, influential individuals.
"To date, the CIA has refused to identify the individuals selected by Mr. Pompeo to serve on the External Advisory Board during his tenure, as well as the role of his wife, Susan Pompeo, a private citizen, in organizing these events,” the Massachusetts Democrat wrote in the letter. “It is imperative that the CIA remains independent of undue influence from partisan political interests."
The concern is that Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas who served as CIA director from January 2017 to April 2018, may have been using the board to curry favor with influential businessmen and politicians. Former CIA officials told Politico that the board was treated to "lavish" dinners and classified briefings. Officials also divulged names of members of the board, which included billionaire entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, a top executive at global advertising agency McCann Worldgroup, a billionaire representative for the Hyatt hotel chain, former Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is now vice chairman of investment bank Moelis & Company,
and William Barr, who at the time served on the board of directors of Time Warner and is now the attorney general.
The CIA declined to comment to the Washington Examiner on the letter but did touch on the advisory board.
"CIA’s External Advisory Board is always a cross-section of industry experts and former senior government leaders who provide counsel on a wide variety of issues," CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said. "In addition to the countless hours members regularly volunteer to share their expertise, the formal meetings provide a forum for in-depth conversations and lively debate on solutions. To suggest those meetings are some lavish vacation would be a misrepresentation."
A State Department spokeswoman, Morgan Ortagus, said in a statement that “while Secretary Pompeo was Director of the CIA, he followed all agency protocols related to the External Advisory Board. Far from being lavish events, meetings were grueling and focused on critical challenges for the Agency and held in the director’s conference room. Meeting agendas and logistics were solely prepared by Agency leadership. Director Hayden established the board and it was a practice of CIA Directors from both political parties to continue the board. For Congressman Lynch to insinuate wrongdoing five months before an election is purely partisan politics on full display."
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