Pompeo in Europe as State Department embroiled in inquiry

OHRID, North Macedonia — With Washington in tumult over the escalating impeachment inquiry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo toured southeast Europe on Friday, trying to ignore the furor back home that has engulfed his department.

Pompeo did not respond to shouted questions from journalists with him as he traveled to Montenegro and North Macedonia to show support for a current NATO ally and a soon-to-be one, as a Ukraine-focused impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump picked up steam.

The top U.S. diplomat flew to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica and then on to Ohrid in North Macedonia, a day after one of his former top aides told congressional investigators in Washington about efforts to press Ukraine’s government to open a corruption probe that could have targeted former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.

Pompeo did not speak with reporters about the actions of former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker aboard his plane on either flight or during a photo opportunity with Montenegro’s Prime Minister Dusko Markovic and Foreign Minister Srdjan Darmanovic.

Meanwhile, the State Department had no comment on Volker’s 10-hour congressional interview on Thursday or on the text messages he turned over that detail a push to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to commit to the corruption probe in exchange for a visit to Washington.

Shortly after Pompeo left Rome, where he spent three days on the first leg of a four-nation tour of Europe, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said his office is reviewing all the cases that were closed by his predecessors, including several related to the owner of a gas company where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board.