US investigates bizarre disappearance of $ 5,800 bottle of whiskey that Japan gave to Mike Pompeo

US State Department investigates apparent disappearance of nearly $ 6,000 bottle of whiskey that the government of Japan gave over two years ago to then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Japanese officials delivered the bottle to the State Department on June 24, 2019, reported The New York Times, noting that Pompeo was then visiting Saudi Arabia.

The former official has no idea, a representative said on Wednesday.

In a notice published in the Federal Register, the official gazette of the United States government, the State Department said it could not find any trace of the location of the bottle and that an “ongoing investigation” was underway into what happened to it. The State Department reported the investigation in its annual accounts of gifts given to senior U.S. officials by foreign governments and officials.

The State Department’s Office of Protocol is responsible for recording and tracking gifts to U.S. officials.

Government officials are allowed to keep gifts under $ 390. Those exceeding this amount can be purchased for personal use, refunding their value to the Treasury Department., or handed over to the National Archives or other government entity.

The New York newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying that the government never received payment for the missing bottle.

The Japanese whiskey was valued at $ 5,800 and was presented at Pompeo in June 2019, likely during his visit to the country that month for a Group of 20 summit.Also attended by then-President Donald Trump, but unlike other giveaways, the department said there was no record of what happened to the bottle.

“The department is investigating the matter and is conducting an ongoing investigation,” he said in the Federal Register notice.

The notice did not offer additional details. A representative for Pompeo said the former secretary “is not aware of the gift and no one has contacted him to investigate.”

The whiskey issue appeared in the State Department’s annual accounts of gifts given to US officials by foreign governments and officials.

Pompeo too said he received two carpets worth a total of $ 19,400 from the President of Kazakhstan and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates. Both mats have been transferred to General Service Administration, according to the notice.

The presentation says that Trump and his wife Melania received more than $ 120,000 in gifts from foreign leaders in 2019, against 88,200 the previous year. In the Republican’s first year in office, in 2017, they said they received over $ 140,000 in gifts.

(With information from the AP and AFP)

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