$5,800 Whiskey Pompeo Received From Japan Has Gone Missing, State Department Says

A $5,800 bottle of Japanese whiskey given to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo two years ago has gone missing, the State Department said Thursday.

“The Department is looking into the matter and has an ongoing inquiry,” the State Department wrote in its filing.

According to the Department, it has been searching for the bottle’s whereabouts as a part of an annual accounting of gifts U.S. officials receive from the foreign leaders. 

The first known account of the booze goes all the way back to June 24, 2019, when Japan first gave the bottle to the then-Secretary of State. 

It is still yet unknown whether the bottle eventually got into the hands of Pompeo as he was visiting Saudi Arabia at that time. 

“Mr. Pompeo has no recollection of receiving the bottle of whisky and does not have any knowledge of what happened to it. He is also unaware of any inquiry into its whereabouts. He has no idea what the disposition was of this bottle of whisky,” William Burck, Pompeo’s lawyer, said in a statement.

The federal law states that U.S. officials can keep any gifts that cost less than $390 and pay for any gifts over that price.

Following the Thursday report, Pompeo was at Fox News, where he discussed the missing bottle.

“The great case of the missing whiskey bottle,” Pompeo joked, as the host John Roberts asked him about the bottle’s whereabout. “Look, a couple facts, I have no idea. I assume it wasn’t ever touched. It never got to me.”

“I have no idea how the State Department lost this thing although I saw enormous incompetence at the State Department during my time there,” the former-Secretary of the State added. “Had it been a case of Diet Coke I would have been all over it. I had no idea that this was missing, that there was an investigation I hear about.”

Article by Dongyoon Shin