The State Department is missing a $5,800 bottle of Japanese whiskey that was gifted to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to a document made public Wednesday.
The agency revealed an “ongoing inquiry” into what happened to the bottle of liquor in a notice, which is set to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday.
Pompeo received the bottle of whiskey on June 24, 2019, according to the document. The former top diplomat, along with former President Donald Trump, was in Japan around that time for a Group of 20 summit.
William Burck, Pompeo’s lawyer, said the former Trump administration official has no memory of receiving the bottle of whiskey or any idea what happened to it.
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“He has no idea what the dispensation was of this bottle of whiskey,” Burck said, according to the New York Times, which reported that officials asked the State Department’s inspector general to look into the matter.
The federal government has strict rules regulating elected officials’ acceptance of gifts from foreign governments, which are predicated on the Constitution’s emoluments clause. Officials are permitted to accept only on certain conditions. For example, an official may take a gift if refusing to do so would cause embarrassment to the donor or the United States.
The document outlined numerous gifts that were accounted for, including two other bottles of whiskey, offered to former Trump administration officials.
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For example, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi gave Trump a “large double frame carved from black stone with the image of President Donald J. Trump in precious metal on one side and the coat of arms of Egypt on the reverse.” The item is now in the custody of the National Archives.
Lisa Curtis, who was deputy assistant to the president and senior director for South and Central Asian Affairs under Trump, was given a handwoven silk carpet from Uzbekistan’s defense minister that is valued at $9,600. The item’s transfer to the General Services Administration is pending, the notice said.
An inspector general investigation into the missing bottle’s whereabouts would not be the first to take up a matter associated with Pompeo’s tenure. The watchdog’s office investigated the former secretary of state and his wife and said in April that the two used public funds to request employees to carry out personal tasks in violation of ethics rules.
