Clash with NPR grows

Pompeo’s clash with NPR grows after journalist is barred from plane

The State Department Correspondents’ Association protested the move, which it saw as retaliation over an exchange with another reporter.

By MATTHEW CHOI

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s quarrel with NPR escalated on Monday after one of the radio network’s reporters was barred from flying on the secretary’s plane during an upcoming trip to Ukraine.

Michele Kelemen, a veteran reporter for the network, was removed from the list of reporters allowed to fly with Pompeo on a trip to Eastern Europe, only days after the secretary reportedly exploded at another NPR reporter for asking questions about Ukraine. The State Department Correspondents’ Association swiftly condemned the move in a statement on Monday.

“Michele is a consummate professional who has covered the State Department for nearly two decades,” the statement said. “We respectfully ask the State Department to reconsider and allow Michele to travel on the plane for this trip.”

“The State Department has courageously defended journalists around the world through statements under its seal,” it continued. “The State Department’s professional ethos commits employees to ‘serve with unfailing professionalism in both my demeanor and my actions, even in the face of adversity.’ We are committed to do our part to preserve a respectful, professional relationship with the institution we cover.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The correspondents association concluded that the exclusion was in retaliation for a testy exchange between Pompeo and NPR host Mary Louise Kelly on Friday morning. During a roughly 10-minute interview, Kelly asked Pompeo a number of questions on U.S. policy in Iran and on Pompeo’s involvement in the Ukraine scandal at the center of President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Kelly asked whether Pompeo owed an apology to former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch for her unceremonious ouster from her post in Ukraine. Yovanovitch was removed as Trump and his circle viewed her as an obstacle to pushing Ukrainian officials to investigate his Democratic rivals.

Pompeo responded tersely and reportedly met with Kelly afterward behind closed doors, yelling at her for asking questions about Ukraine.

“He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine,” Kelly recounted on NPR. “He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others.”

Kelly said Pompeo challenged her to identify Ukraine on an unlabeled world map, which she said she did. She said NPR reached out to the State Department to let it know the news organization planned to report on the exchange, which NPR said Kelly had never agreed would be off the record.

Pompeo reacted the next day with a fiery statement, accusing Kelly of violating an agreement to go off the record and implying that she pointed to Bangladesh rather than Ukraine (Kelly has a master’s degree in European studies from Cambridge University). The Washington Post reported that it had reviewed emails that confirmed NPR had cleared discussing both Iran and Ukraine with Pompeo’s team before the interview.

The exchange went beyond a two-person conflict, fueling the Trump administration’s larger antipathy toward the public radio network. The president has frequently accused NPR, along with the majority of the nation’s media, of being biased against him. He renewed that criticism, going so far as to question on Sunday why NPR exists on Twitter.

Pompeo plans to visit Ukraine as its nation’s leaders play key roles in Trump’s ongoing impeachment trial. While he is in Kyiv, the capital, he plans to visit the U.S. Embassy, whose leadership was shaken by Yovanovitch’s ouster. He also plans to visit President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom House Democrats say Trump tried to coerce into investigating the Bidens in exchange for vital military aid.