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January 1, Scrutiny on Sec. Pompeo, Wife Intensifies

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This Day in History | 1927

Charles A. Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, on the world’s first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris.

Pompeo’s Elite Taxpayer-Funded Dinners Raise New Concerns

(NBC News) – The secretary of state’s exclusive “Madison Dinners” have featured guest lists heavy on influencers but light on diplomatic invitees.

As federal workers file out of the State Department at the end of a Washington workday, an elite group is often just arriving in the marbled, flag-lined lobby: Billionaire CEOs, Supreme Court justices, political heavyweights and ambassadors arrive in evening attire as they’re escorted by private elevator to dinner with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Until the coronavirus shut them down in March, the gatherings were known as “Madison Dinners” — elaborate, unpublicized affairs that Pompeo and his wife, Susan Pompeo, began in 2018 and held regularly in the historic Diplomatic Reception Rooms on the government’s dime.

State Department officials involved in the dinners said they had raised concerns internally that the events were essentially using federal resources to cultivate a donor and supporter base for Pompeo’s political ambitions — complete with extensive contact information that gets sent back to Susan Pompeo’s personal email address. The officials and others who attended discussed the dinners on condition of anonymity.

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Related: Susan Pompeo Draws Scrutiny in Inquiry Over Dry Cleaning and Dog Walking

(NY Times) – Susan Pompeo, the wife of America’s top diplomat, said in an interview last year that she could handle the criticism that came with taking a high-profile role at the State Department.

If so, the last few days have surely tested her mettle.

Mrs. Pompeo is now under scrutiny after the firing of the State Department’s inspector general at her husband’s behest. It is an uninvited turn for a woman who has long appeared to relish the relationships and perks of being a politician’s wife, and who has been far more vibrant in the limelight than Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the other half of a “down-to-earth power couple,” as they have been called in their home state of Kansas.

Pelosi on Calling Trump ‘Morbidly Obese’: ‘I Didn’t Know that he Would be so Sensitive’

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Pompeo’s Elite Taxpayer-Funded Dinners Raise New Concerns

(NBC News) – The secretary of state’s exclusive “Madison Dinners” have featured guest lists heavy on influencers but light on diplomatic invitees.

As federal workers file out of the State Department at the end of a Washington workday, an elite group is often just arriving in the marbled, flag-lined lobby: Billionaire CEOs, Supreme Court justices, political heavyweights and ambassadors arrive in evening attire as they’re escorted by private elevator to dinner with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Until the coronavirus shut them down in March, the gatherings were known as “Madison Dinners” — elaborate, unpublicized affairs that Pompeo and his wife, Susan Pompeo, began in 2018 and held regularly in the historic Diplomatic Reception Rooms on the government’s dime.

State Department officials involved in the dinners said they had raised concerns internally that the events were essentially using federal resources to cultivate a donor and supporter base for Pompeo’s political ambitions — complete with extensive contact information that gets sent back to Susan Pompeo’s personal email address. The officials and others who attended discussed the dinners on condition of anonymity.

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Texas Judge Orders Universal Access to Voting By Mail

(Texas Tribune) – A federal judge opened a path for a massive expansion in absentee voting in Texas by ordering Tuesday that all state voters, regardless of age, qualify for mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic.

Days after a two-hour preliminary injunction hearing in San Antonio, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery agreed with individual Texas voters and the Texas Democratic Party that voters would face irreparable harm if existing age eligibility rules for voting by mail remain in place for elections held while the coronavirus remains in wide circulation. Under his order, which the Texas attorney general said he would immediately appeal, voters under the age of 65 who would ordinarily not qualify for mail-in ballots would now be eligible.

Biery’s ruling covers Texas voters “who seek to vote by mail to avoid transmission of the virus.”

In a lengthy order, which he opened by quoting the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, Biery said he had concerns for the health and safety of voters and stated the right to vote “should not be elusively based on the whims of nature.”

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Pelosi on Calling Trump ‘Morbidly Obese’: ‘I Didn’t Know that he Would be so Sensitive’

(The Hill) – Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday defended her comment claiming that President Trump could be at greater risk of complications from taking an unproven coronavirus treatment because he is “morbidly obese,” adding that she didn’t anticipate he would be “so sensitive” about his appearance.

“I didn’t know that he would be so sensitive. He’s always talking about other people’s … weight, their pounds,” Pelosi said during an interview Tuesday with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace.

“I think he should recognize that his words weigh a ton. Instead of telling people to put Lysol into their lungs or taking a medication that has not been approved except under certain circumstances, he should be saying what your previous guest mentioned, things that would help people,” she said, referring to Trump’s musings about disinfectants last month.

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