A top arms control negotiator at the State Department is accused of failing to disclose ties to a GOP operative caught up in the Maria Butina affair
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 after it was revealed that she had failed to disclose her ties to the boyfriend of Russian foreign agent Maria Butina.
A State Department spokesman confirmed receipt of the letter, but declined to comment on Pompeo’s last-minute decision to send Sullivan to Geneva, or on whether the department was satisfied with Thompson’s disclosures during her confirmation process.Sign Up “All senior officers have to report on their finances and any connections to overseas interests. Diplomatic Security should review her clearance,” said John Sipher, who spent nearly three decades working in the CIA’s clandestine service, including a stint in Moscow. “When Erickson and Butina were all over the news, she should have reported her connection. At the very least it now puts the administration in a bind where critics can question her competence, professionalism and judgment.
Thompson’s alleged failure to disclose her relationship with Erickson, who was by then the subject of national news stories detailing his relationship with Butina, during her Senate confirmation has raised anxiety among Russia hawks in the Trump orbit who fear that Thompson, one of the last remaining acolytes of the president’s first national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, is insufficiently hard-headed and enters this week’s talks in a compromised position.
Flynn was pushed out of the administration in February of 2017 after news reports indicated he had misled senior White House officials about the substance of his conversations with Russian officials during the transition period. He stands accused of lying to the FBI about the nature of those interactions, though he has suggested that investigators tricked him into making false statements.
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