In light of a series of damning text messages revealing the scope of the effort by the Trump administration to pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, former State Department official Phillipe Reines told MSNBC's David Gura that there's no way any of this went on without Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's knowledge.
"I worked there for four years," said Reines. "I worked with hundreds, if not more than a thousand foreign service officers like Bill Taylor, I worked with the secretary. This doesn't go on without a few things. First, without the secretary knowing. No one's calling Rudy Giuliani on their own, because they feel like involving him in Ukrainian policy. People are not writing text messages where they're saying, hey, I don't think this is a good idea. They know, they're memorializing it, they were what we call papering it. This is not how things are done. And we say that about everything, but this is so beyond the pale, it's why they are getting caught every step of the way."
"And by the way, there is so much more than this," added Reines. "I mean, this is going to document itself up the ladder to Pompeo. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind. As someone who had tens of thousands of their email out in the public domain and having to explain what it means if I'm telling Hillary Clinton that "Homeland" is on Showtime at 10:00. I mean, it is crazy to look at these texts and have to interpret them. There's nothing to interpret!"
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