Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that there is a “substantial possibility” that senior Russian officials will lead the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
“I think other people around the world see this kind of activity for what it is. And when they see the effort to poison a dissident, and they recognize that there is a clever possibility that it comes from senior Russian officials, I think “I don’t think it’s smart for Russia,” Pompeo told conservative commentator Ben Shapiro in an interview Wednesday. “I don’t think he’s smart for Russia. “
The comments come as President Donald Trump has refused to condemn Russia for poisoning the opposition leader, even as world leaders have censored Russia and demanded answers.
Trump gave the impression of protecting Russia on Friday by telling reporters at a press convention that “there is still no evidence” of the Kremlin’s involvement.
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” Trump said when asked about his position on poisoning, Trump used the same tactic of fake ignorance several times before when he doesn’t need to take on the duty to publicly condemn and probably sever ties with them. he sees his political agenda as potentially.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson struggled to express strong public opposition to Navalny’s poisoning.
Last week, Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, issued an official confirmation that tests conducted through a German army laboratory now show “undoubted evidence of a nervous chemical agent from the Novichok group. “
The German government had reported in the past that Navalny, who had come out of a coma while being treated in the country, had been exposed to a Novichok, a known chemical weapon developed across the Soviet Union. in at least one other case in an attack on an enemy of the Kremlin.