A document reveals that the US State Department is looking for a $5,800 bottle of whiskey that the Japanese government gave to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The New York Times quoted a notice to the State Department’s Chief of Protocol Office dated July 22, containing gifts given to US federal employees from foreign governments in 2019, stating that the government of Japan gave Pompeo whiskey on June 24, 2019.
The gift was listed as “its fate unknown”, while the ministry is investigating and opening an investigation into it, and the newspaper indicated that US officials are allowed to keep gifts under $390, and that they must buy more than that if they want to keep them.
Pompeo’s attorney, William Burke, commented on the incident, saying, “Mr. Pompeo has no recollection of obtaining the whiskey bottle and has no knowledge of what happened to it. He also does not know of any investigation into its whereabouts. He has no idea what happened to that bottle of whiskey.” The State Department responds to a request for more details.
The newspaper quoted two people familiar with the matter, saying that the US government never paid for the bottle and that the State Department asked its inspector general to determine what happened to it.
It is not yet clear whether Pompeo received the gift in the first place, as he was heading to Saudi Arabia on June 24, 2019, when Japanese officials presented it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.