The Trump White House just sacrificed Mike Pompeo in the whistleblower scandal

Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live fictionally depicted Donald Trump calling around trying to find someone in his own regime he could scapegoat for his whistleblower scandal. Now it turns out real life is indeed imitating art, because Donald Trump and his White House just sacrificed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in an apparent effort at salvaging whatever is left.

The Trump White House just told the Wall Street Journal that Mike Pompeo participated in Donald Trump’s fateful phone call with the president of Ukraine. Considering that Trump used that phone call to try to criminally conspire with Ukraine to alter the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, this doesn’t just throw Pompeo under the bus, it earmarks him for prison.

What stands out here is that the Trump White House is making this move just hours after Rudy Giuliani went on cable news and insisted that Mike Pompeo was aware of Rudy’s antics in Ukraine all along. It’s not clear if Pompeo is now being officially sacrificed because Rudy convinced Trump to go that route, or because the Trump White House has concluded that Rudy has recklessly destroyed Pompeo anyway.

Interestingly, this comes at a time when Mike Pompeo has just been subpoenaed for all Ukraine-related documents by the House impeachment inquiry. Pompeo now has to decide whether to bet his future and his freedom on the leniency he’ll get from cooperating with the inquiry, or on the hope of a Trump pardon. Considering that Donald Trump just threw him under the bus, Pompeo has to be realizing right about now that no magic pardon is coming.