Pompeo slams 'unseemly and unprecedented' Kerry-Iran meetings
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday vehemently criticized his Obama administration predecessor John Kerry for meeting with Iranian officials after leaving office.
"What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented," Pompeo said. "This is a former secretary of state engaged with the world's largest state sponsor of terror, and according to him, he was talking to them, he was telling them to wait out this administration."
Kerry said in a recent interview he has met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif several times, discussing topics including the Iran nuclear deal, which Kerry helped negotiate and from which President Trump withdrew the United States earlier this year. Kerry's office said he has given Pompeo detailed and timely reports of their conversations.
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"No secrets were kept from this administration," said Kerry's representative, Matt Summers. "[Kerry] was advocating for what was wholly consistent with U.S. policy at the time. There's nothing unusual, let alone unseemly or inappropriate, about former diplomats meeting with foreign counterparts."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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