Pompeo layers over top State Dept. negotiator
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concern about sending one of his top arms control negotiators, Andrea Thompson, to head a U.S. delegation meeting with Russia’s deputy foreign minister this week.
The delegation, which now includes Sullivan, Thompson and other senior U.S. officials, is attending the strategic security dialogue in Geneva, where American officials are set to talk with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov about arms control.
Thompson’s presence at the meeting raised concern in some quarters of the administration after the Washington Post reported last month that she had not disclosed her personal and financial ties to Paul Erickson.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a private letter to the State Department in recent days regarding Thompson’s “apparent failures to disclose required and material information to the SFRC during her nomination process,” according to Juan Pachon, Menendez’s communications director on the committee.