May 16, 2020

Trump Fires Yet Another Inspector General

Caroline Brehman/Congressional Quarterly via ZUMA

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Oh hey, President Trump fired yet another inspector general last night. Was it because he helped out in the impeachment probe, like the other IGs Trump has fired? Yes, but only peripherally (he was looking into Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to get our Ukraine ambassador fired). So what did he do?

State Department Inspector General Steve Linick was fired Friday in a late-night ouster that drew condemnations from Democrats….Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D.-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, claimed the State Inspector General was fired after opening an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and said the timing suggested “an unlawful act of retaliation.”

….A Democratic congressional aide said that Linick was looking into Pompeo’s “misuse of a political appointee at the Department to perform personal tasks for himself and Mrs. Pompeo.”

The Trump message continues to get stronger every day. If you so much as open an investigation against someone in the Trump administration, you’re fired.

Needless to say, this poses a problem. The job of an inspector general is to audit the cabinet department he works for. But since Trump is currently president, everyone in every cabinet department is part of the Trump administration. This basically means that the entire IG corps is on notice not to seriously investigate anyone.

Of course, this only poses a problem for you and me. For Trump, it’s exactly the message he wants to send. And you won’t hear a peep out of Republicans about this. Apparently they’re just fine with it.

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