The mystery of the $ 5,800 Japanese whiskey bottle: State Department investigation haunting Mike Pompeo

The State Department is looking for an expensive bottle of whiskey that the Japanese government gave Mike Pompeo when he was US Secretary of State. The present, which has a value of $ 5,800, was received by Pompeo in June 2019, according to a report on gifts to U.S. officials in foreign governments presented by the State Department’s chief of protocol. Pompeo attended the Group of 20 Major Economies summit this month in Osaka, Japan. Although his lawyer, William Burck, assures us that the former Trump minister “has no memory of receiving the whiskey bottle nor does he know what happened to him. “

US executive officials have very specific rules and limits on what gifts can be kept. In theory, they couldn’t be worth more than $ 20, But there are exceptions. They can accept them if their rejection “is likely to cause offense, embarrassment or harm foreign relations”, but they are considered the property of the federal government. Anyway, cannot exceed $ 415. If they are more expensive, they must be delivered and be part of the collections of the National Archives or a museum. They can also buy it by sending a check for the estimated value from the Treasury Department’s subject matter experts.

The Japanese whiskey in question is very high-end, which can cost even more than the nearly $ 6,000 the State Department valued it for. In 2019, the federal government received at least two more bottles of this whiskeyOne for $ 8,374 the Japanese government gave to former Trump aide Matthew Pottinger, and another for $ 2,525 and an undisclosed sender, a common practice for gifts received by intelligence officers. Most Japanese whiskeys taste similar to those made in Ireland, Scotland or the United States. But the prices of these drinks have risen dramatically in recent years to reach thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. “There are a huge demand by wealthy collectors especially in Asia who will be happy to pay the equivalent of a good sports car for just one bottle of really old Japanese whiskey, ”Stefan van Eycken, the author of the book“ Whiskey Rising, ”explained to the New York Times.

While other gifts received by Pompeo, including a silver falcon statue of the Chancellor of Saudi Arabia, are classified as transferred to the State Department’s National Museum of American Diplomacy, Japanese whiskey is marked as “Disposition unknown”. And it is a fault which, according to American law, may receive criminal and administrative sanctions. If he was still in office, he could face impeachment. Pompeo has two other investigations open, one for overspending for dinners he gave at the State Department and a reception he had in the Jewish settlement of Psagot, in the occupied Palestinian territories, where They entertained him with a special wine that bore his name. Several boxes were given to him, which he did not officially report on his return.

Pompeo has already faced other ethical issues while serving in Trump’s cabinet. He and his wife asked a longtime State Department member and family friend to perform over 100 personal taskslike walking your dog, making dinner reservations and sending family Christmas cards, the State Department Inspector General reported in April. Pompeo denied that he or his wife had committed ethical violations and called the report “Slander”, “political” and “full of factual errors”.

According to the same reports, Trump administration officials routinely violate guidelines on day-to-day government matters, such as record keeping and ethics, and documentation submitted for gifts. “It was often incomplete.” Following the investigation into the Pompeos, Trump echoes Inspector General. “Like much of what happened in Trump’s day, it stems from a mix of rules and regulations that were previously obscure and rarely invoked,” said Stanley Brand, criminal lawyer, ethicist and former principal lawyer of the Chamber of Justice. “I have dealt with questions of public ethics for 40 years and I’ve never seen so many irregularities before”.

In 1880, Queen Victoria presented President Rutherford B. Hayes with an ornate carved wood desk from the British ship HMS Resolute. He’s been in the Oval Office ever since, and generations of presidents have sat behind it. Is it maybe the most visible symbol of the sometimes extravagant and often bizarre gifts that American presidents receive and that they can never be taken home. Of course, there are also a few examples of what could not stay for practical reasons. Theodore Roosevelt received a zebra and a lion from Ethiopia; Richard Nixon, a Chinese panda; George W. Bush, 150 kilos of Argentinian lamb meat.

And there are other gifts that have been received with additional requests. Lloyd N. Hand, chief of protocol under the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, recalled in his book the case where the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom gifted the President with a Burberry coat. As the British delegation left, Johnson tried on his overcoat and saw that the sleeves were too short. The President gave Hand the coat and ordered him to catch up with the Prime Minister and ask him to change his coat to the correct size. Hand remembers running to the limo, while the Secret Service agents worriedly wondered what was going on. He stopped the car and put the coat back on. The donation returned a few weeks later in the mail and in the correct size.

Until 1928, all gifts from foreign dignitaries had to be approved by Congress, after which they could become the property of the recipient. But as the United States gained prominence on the world stage, a protocol division was created to help presidents entertain visiting dignitaries and, of course, organize the usual gift exchanges. And you never miss a somewhat exaggerated decision. During the presidency of George Bush Jr., the President of Bulgaria gave him a puppy that an official sent directly to the basement of the National Archives on the Washington Mall. Bush saved him and handed him over to a family who was visiting the White House at the time.

Back when Barack Obama was in charge of the Administration, there were two different types of approaches to the ethical limits of gifts. There have been those who have tried minimalist deliveries: Northern Ireland has betrayed a packet of sea salt, a small cloth-lined newspaper and a set of four coasters; Brunei has tried the same approach with 12 scented candles and a penguin-shaped tea infuser. Others have followed a more traditional and ostentatious line. The Sultan of Malaysia offered to the president a 20 inch steel sword with a gem-encrusted scabbard, While the Prime Minister of Algeria was not far behind and gave him a ceremonial dagger with coral and silver stones. There is not a lot of context that they have opted for being able to acquire the freebies by paying for them out of their own pocket. We know that at the end of his term as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton chooses to buy the black pearl necklace given to her by Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in 2012. He paid $ 970.

Trump and his wife Melania received more than $ 120,000 in gifts from foreign dignitaries in 2019. The year before it was $ 88,200 and in 2017, his first year in the White House, it was $ 140,000. Gifts include three frames painted from photos by international artists who are still in dispute. Trump wants them in his Mar-a-Lago office. And then the head of the central command in charge of operations in the Middle East, General Joseph Votel, had to reluctantly hand over three luxury watches worth $ 37,000 was entrusted to him by the Qatari government.

The Pompeo whiskey will have to appear or the former secretary of state You have to pay it at the current market price. Is expert minds estimate that it may have already exceeded $ 6,000. The market is very demanding and competitive. Prices are soaring.