Trump's latest firing is a blatant attempt to shield Pompeo from accountability
STATE DEPARTMENT Inspector General Steve Linick was asked by House Democrats last year to investigate whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo abused his authority in declaring an emergency to ram through arms sales to Saudi Arabia in spite of congressional opposition. Mr. Linick was also reportedly probing Mr. Pompeos use of an aide to perform personal errands for himself and his wife. Mr. Pompeo asked President Trump to fire Mr. Linick and late on Friday, the president did just that, in a blatant attempt to shield the secretary of state from accountability.
The blunt dismissal of a nonpartisan official whose job it is to provide an independent evaluation of just the sort of allegations Mr. Pompeo was facing would be shocking if it were not just the latest step in a campaign by Mr. Trump to eliminate accountability across the federal government. Mr. Linick is one of four inspectors general fired or replaced by Mr. Trump since April 3, when he ousted the intelligence community IG who forwarded a whistleblowers account of his wrongdoing on Ukraine to Congress.
The purge makes a mockery of Congresss attempt to protect the independence of inspectors general, including a legal requirement that they not be removed without written justfication. In the case of Mr. Linick, Mr. Trump dispatched a vague letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saying he no longer had the fullest confidence in the IG. But Mr. Pompeo did not hesitate to blurt out the real reason Monday: Mr. Linick was not doing his bidding. He wasnt performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, Mr. Pompeo said in an interview. But it is not the inspector generals job to do what the secretary of state demands especially when it comes to investigating his own behavior.
Mr. Linick, who had held his post since 2013, had a record of holding secretaries of state of both parties to account. In 2016, he issued a critical report on Hillary Clintons use of a private email server, fueling a controversy that helped get Mr. Trump elected. But he also reported last year on the harassment of career staff in the State Department accused of disloyalty to Trump, and he cooperated with the Houses impeachment inquiry.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trumps-latest-firing-is-a-blatant-attempt-to-shield-pompeo-from-accountability/2020/05/18/506d0424-991c-11ea-89fd-28fb313d1886_story.html
machoneman
(4,006 posts)Ah, but his fellow Republiscums will bleat, for awhile, like they were stuck with hot branding irons, then fall silent.
Bets, anyone?
Igel
(35,300 posts)In a letter to Pelosi, the president used this language:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52688658
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31325894/ns/us_news-giving/t/obama-fires-americorps-inspector-general/#.XsP-JGhKhGM
Yes, it is vague. Oddly, it's language both 11 years old and 3 days old. But to say the language itself shows an utter contempt for the role the IG plays winds up as a rebuke to Obama. (Of course, if you forget the past, then obviously Obama never wrote such a thing. I assume that the problem was that the non-profit in 2009 was shamed instead of just having everything worked out behind the scenes. That's how one appointee referred to the IG when he was in charge of some chunk of the executive--if there was a problem, they worked together to solve it.)
The WaPo, course, also covered Walpin's firing.
world wide wally
(21,742 posts)Same Old Shit