Retired two-star US Army general slams West Point graduates Mike Pompeo and 'lightweight coward' Mark Esper: 'Disgusting'

In contrast to his predecessor, Rex Tillerson — who left the Trump Administration on very bad terms with President Donald Trump — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has turned out to be as loyal and unquestioning a Trump supporter as Attorney General William Barr or White House Adviser Kellyanne Conway. Pompeo was at his most Trumpian on January 24, when he lashed out during an interview with NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly: upset because Kelly brought up the Ukraine scandal, Pompeo resorted to yelling and cursing at her. And one of the people who believes that Pompeo is disgracing the position of secretary of state is retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, a fellow graduate of West Point Military Academy.

The 56-year-old Pompeo graduated from West Point in 1986, while Eaton (who was born in 1950) graduated 14 years earlier in 1972. And as Eaton sees it, Pompeo’s bad behavior is unbecoming of a West Point graduate.

On January 28, Eaton lashed out at both Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Twitter, posting, “Disgusting performance by @SecPompeo. Lightweight coward  @EsperDoD. What is wrong with West Point class of 86? Who mentored you? What happened to the West Point Honor Code in your class? America is very badly served by these men.”

Eaton has made it abundantly clear that he won’t be voting for Trump in the 2020 presidential election and would like to see him voted out office: the West Point graduate has been an adviser to the Democratic political action committee VoteVets.

And Eaton, in his January 28 tweet, also asserted, “Vote Democratic America. Deny Trump.”

In the early 2000s, Eaton served as deputy commanding general at the U.S. Army Infantry Center in Fort Benning, Georgia — and in 2003 and 2004, he was in charge of training Iraqi forces during the Iraq War. But Eaton, after retiring from the U.S. Army in 2006, was critical of President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War. And in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, he supported Hillary Clinton but came out in support of Barack Obama after he won the nomination.