Secretary of State Pompeo Delivers Historic RNC Speech from Jerusalem Rooftop, Violating Hatch Act After Changing State Department Policy

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech to the Republican National Convention from a hotel rooftop in Jerusalem during an official diplomatic trip to the Middle East, becoming the first sitting Secretary of State to address a party convention in modern history. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel later concluded that Pompeo violated the Hatch Act after changing long-standing State Department policy specifically to permit his own partisan political participation, documenting that he amended the policy “after being asked, on behalf of President Trump, to participate in the RNC.”

Background

On July 24, 2020—just weeks before the RNC—Pompeo himself had issued a memo warning that presidential and political appointees “may not engage in any partisan political activity in concert with a partisan campaign.” A State Department legal memo from the Office of the Legal Adviser noted that “Senate-confirmed presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event.” Despite these explicit prohibitions that reflected decades of bipartisan State Department policy, Pompeo proceeded to change the rules to accommodate Trump’s request that he speak at the convention.

Pompeo pre-recorded his speech on August 25, 2020 (August 26 Jerusalem time) from the roof of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where he was visiting as part of a multi-day diplomatic swing through the Middle East and Africa. The speech featured repeated references to State Department achievements and used his official position to promote the Trump administration’s foreign policy record. Former diplomats and congressional Democrats immediately condemned the speech, noting that previous Secretaries of State from both parties had scrupulously avoided participating in partisan political events to maintain the department’s credibility and nonpartisan standing.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee launched an investigation examining whether Pompeo violated federal law. Critics noted the inherent contradiction: Pompeo used an official diplomatic trip, paid for by taxpayers and supported by State Department resources, to engage in prohibited campaign activity after personally authoring guidance that such activity was illegal—then changing that guidance to exempt himself when Trump requested his participation.

Significance

The OSC’s finding that Pompeo violated the Hatch Act represented an unprecedented corruption of the State Department’s traditional nonpartisan status. No previous Secretary of State had addressed a party convention precisely because doing so would compromise the department’s credibility in conducting diplomacy and undermine trust in American foreign policy institutions.

Pompeo’s violation was particularly egregious because he first documented that such participation was illegal, then changed State Department policy specifically to permit his own lawbreaking after receiving Trump’s request. This demonstrated the administration’s systematic approach to ethics violations: when laws proved inconvenient, simply change internal policies to create the appearance of compliance while violating both the spirit and substance of federal law.

The speech’s delivery from Jerusalem during an official trip added an additional layer of impropriety, using U.S. diplomatic resources, foreign travel, and international settings as props for domestic campaign purposes. This exploitation of official government functions for partisan advantage became a defining characteristic of the 2020 RNC, which the OSC documented involved Hatch Act violations by 13 senior administration officials.

Pompeo’s conduct set a dangerous precedent that threatened to permanently politicize the State Department and undermine America’s diplomatic credibility worldwide. By subordinating his duties as the nation’s chief diplomat to Trump’s campaign interests, Pompeo demonstrated how the administration had abandoned any distinction between governing and campaigning, treating all federal resources as legitimate campaign assets regardless of law or longstanding ethical norms.