Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be delivering a pre-recorded political speech to the Republican National Convention tonight. He will be the first sitting Secretary of State to participate in a party’s national convention, and he recorded the speech while on an official trip to Israel. The speech was reportedly recorded atop the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. This appears to be a flagrant violation the Hatch Act, and it clearly violates the department’s own guidelines that Pompeo set down as recently as July:

Diplomats who are barred by law from mixing work and politics say they’re appalled by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision to address the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, breaking with long-standing traditions aimed at isolating American’s foreign policy from partisan battles at home.

It would be problematic enough, current and former U.S. diplomats said, if Pompeo were simply showing up at the convention to speak. But Pompeo’s decision to use a stop in Jerusalem during an official overseas trip as the site for his recorded speech to fellow Republicans raises even more troubling questions about the message it sends to other countries and whether U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill, they said.

“It’s all just shredding the Hatch Act,” a current U.S. diplomat said, referring to the federal law that prohibits government employees from political activity on the job or in their official capacities.

This is not the first time that Pompeo’s behavior has raised red flags. He has traveled in the U.S. many times to engage in domestic political activities under the cloak of conducting official business. Delivering a speech to a party convention while out of the country on State Department business follows the same pattern, but it represents a much more gross breach of the rules governing public officials. The department’s claim that no department resources were used for the speech is not credible:

But four current and former high-ranking diplomats questioned that claim, given the logistics needed to support the secretary, particularly overseas. The plane that took Pompeo to Israel, to start with, is a U.S. government aircraft.

A State Department official with knowledge of the secretary’s usual travel arrangements said that even a brief detour during Pompeo’s visit to Israel to tape a convention speech would involve motorcade drivers, locally employed workers from the U.S. Embassy and traveling staff members from Washington who accompany the secretary at all times, as well as his significant security apparatus, all of which is paid for by taxpayers.

“Employees supporting the secretary’s trip to Israel who have sworn an oath to the U.S. Constitution, not a political party, are also forced to support these partisan activities at taxpayers’ expense,” the State Department official said. “It is outrageously un-American for a sitting secretary of state to participate in a political convention.”

It isn’t possible that Pompeo could arrange a stunt like this in a foreign country while there on an official visit and not use government resources. He is openly abusing his office and misusing department resources so that he can send a partisan propaganda message from Israel. This not only violates the policy that everyone in the department is expected to follow, but it is pretty clearly a violation of federal law.

Nahal Toosi reports that Pompeo’s office issued guidelines that specifically bar Senate-confirmed officials from taking part in any campaign activities even when they are on their own time:

In July, Pompeo’s office sent out a memo to all diplomatic and consular posts reiterating the need to adhere to State Department policies governing political activity and laws such as the Hatch Act, which places restrictions on the political activities of federal employees.

The July note refers to Biegun‘s Feb. 18 missive and the legal memos to which it linked. The July note also points out: “Presidential and political appointees … are subject to significant restrictions on their political activity; they may not engage in any partisan political activity in concert with a partisan campaign, political party, or partisan political group, even on personal time and outside of the federal workplace.“

The department’s claim that Pompeo is giving the speech in his “personal capacity” is irrelevant. As Secretary of State, he cannot give a partisan political speech even when he is on “personal time,” and it is absurd to claim that he is on his own time when he is in another country representing the United States.

Pompeo has been the most overly partisan Secretary of State in modern U.S. history, and now there is no longer any pretense that he is anything more than a partisan operative:

Another State diplomat reached out to blast Pompeo’s RNC address tonight:

Pompeo and Trump “have obliterated the line between government work and politics. Everything in the US government is now bent in service of the president, not the American people.”

— Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox) August 25, 2020

There is a good reason why none of his predecessors has given a convention speech before. It not only compromises the Secretary’s position by making the country’s top diplomat into a partisan mouthpiece, but it also corruptly uses taxpayer funds to subsidize activities to benefit one party and to advance the political fortunes of the person holding the office. Pompeo has been seeking to leverage his current position for his own political advantage at the public’s expense for a while now, and this time he has broken every rule to do it. Pompeo’s behavior is outrageous and it also appears to be illegal. If Pompeo had any respect for the law or the State Department, he would resign tomorrow, but we all know that won’t happen.