Intel chairman tells Maddow to expect more resignations after Mike Pompeo lost top diplomat

Fortuitous timing resulted in The Washington Post publishing a bombshell report minutes before Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) was interviewed on "The Rachel Maddow Show."

"Michael McKinley, a career diplomat and senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has resigned his position amid rising dissatisfaction and plummeting morale inside the State Department over what is seen as Pompeo’s failure to support personnel ensnared in the Ukraine controversy," The Post reported.

"A senior officer who has held a range of diplomatic posts, including ambassador to Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru, McKinley was serving as ambassador to Brazil last year when Pompeo recruited him as a policy adviser and a conduit between his office and the career service," the newspaper noted. "Among the many issues in which he played a role, McKinley has been closely involved in administration policy on Venezuela, Mexico, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, where last month President Trump abruptly canceled U.S. peace negotiations with the Taliban that both sides had said were near an agreement."

Maddow asked Schiff about the breaking news.

"Well, I think it’s a reflection of the fact that morale at the department has really plummeted. A lot of the career people who are devoted to furthering the best interests of the United States, devoting themselves to upholding the values of the United States, feel that those values are being undermined by the way the department is run, that the career people, the real professionals are being undermined and people are making a decision they’re not going to put up with it anymore," Schiff said.

His prediction that people "are not going to put it with it anymore" extends beyond the State Department.

"There are a lot of storylines running through this investigation and certainly one of them is about the effort of career professionals -- not just in the State Department, but throughout the government -- who are trying to do the right thing and running into this political interference of the White House, this corrupt influence of the White House and, you know, I think this resignation may very well have to do with the fact that people are deciding they’re simply not going to put up with this anymore and can’t look the other way," Schiff explained.

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