https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52688658 Steve Linick: Trump fires state department inspector general The US state department's inspector general, Steve Linick, has become the latest senior official to be fired by US President Donald Trump. Mr Trump said Mr Linick no longer had his full confidence and that he would be removed in 30 days. Mr Linick had begun investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for suspected abuse of office, reports say. Democrats say Mr Trump is retaliating against public servants who want to hold his administration to account. "It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general. That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general," Mr Trump is quoted as saying in a letter sent late on Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US media report. Not long after Mr Linick's dismissal was announced, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Mr Linick had opened an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "This firing is the outrageous act of a president trying to protect one of his most loyal supporters, the secretary of state, from accountability," Eliot Engel, a Democrat, said in a statement. "I have learned that the Office of the Inspector General had opened an investigation into Secretary Pompeo. Mr Linick's firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation." Mr Engel did not provide any further details about the content of this investigation into Mr Pompeo. Congressional aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, have been quoted in different media as saying that Mr Linick was examining complaints that Mr Pompeo may have improperly used staff and asked them to perform personal tasks. Mr Linick, a former prosecutor, was appointed by Mr Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, to oversee spending and detect mismanagement at the state department. Democrats have been reacting to the move. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Mr Linick was "punished for honourably performing his duty to protect the constitution and our national security". The late-night, weekend firing of State Department IG Steve Linick is an acceleration of the President’s dangerous pattern of retaliation against the patriotic public servants charged with conducting oversight on behalf of the American people. https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/51520-2 … Pelosi Statement on Late-Night Firing of State Department Inspector General The President’s late-night, weekend firing of the State Department Inspector General has accelerated his dangerous pattern of retaliation against the patriotic public servants charged with conducting... "The president must cease his pattern of reprisal and retaliation against the public servants who are working to keep Americans safe, particularly during this time of global emergency," she added in a statement. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said the Senate Foreign Relations Committee needed to learn more about the dismissal. If Inspector General Linick was fired because he was conducting an investigation of conduct by Secretary Pompeo, the Senate cannot let this stand. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee must get to bottom of what happened here. This is the latest in a series of dismissals of independent government watchdogs. Last month, Mr Trump dismissed Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community. Mr Atkinson first alerted Congress to a whistleblower complaint that led to Mr Trump's impeachment trial.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...o-asked-him-to-fire-state-department-watchdog Trump Says Pompeo Asked Him to Fire State Department Watchdog ‘I was happy to do it,’ Trump says, referring to the dismissal Trump says he’s been treated unfairly by inspectors generalMichael Pompeo and Donald Trump President Donald Trump said Secretary of State Michael Pompeo asked him to fire the State Department’s inspector general, Steve Linick. “I don’t know the gentleman,” Trump said Monday at the White House during a meeting with restaurateurs at the White House. “I was happy to do it. Mike requested that I do it.” Trump notified Congress on Friday that he would fire Linick, saying he had lost confidence in the official. Linick was appointed to the job by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said earlier Monday that Linick was investigating an emergency declaration Trump issued last year in order to hasten U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. A congressional official has said Linick was also investigating whether Pompeo directed an aide to perform personal errands, including walking his dog. The firing has drawn outrage from congressional Democrats who were already concerned about Trump’s removal or replacement of other inspectors general. Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has said Trump must more fully explain the move. “I think we’ve been treated very unfairly by inspector generals,” Trump said. But he said he didn’t know specifically what Linick had done wrong. “Maybe he thinks he’s being treated unfairly,” Trump said of Pompeo. “This is a man who has had some controversy, this inspector general,” he said, before repeating that he doesn’t know much about him. Trump said he believes inspectors general appointed by his predecessor should “generally” be replaced throughout the government. The president belittled the idea that Pompeo would be under investigation for directing aides to perform personal errands or that arms sales to the Saudis should be a matter of controversy. “You mean he’s under investigation because he had someone walk his dog from the government? I don’t think it sounds that important,” he said. “Maybe he’s busy and maybe he’s negotiating with Kim Jong Un, OK, over nuclear weapons.” He said he wasn’t familiar with the Saudi emergency declaration. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If they are friendly countries, I try to make it as easy as possible,” he said. “It’s billions of dollars.” He returned to the idea Pompeo is under investigation for misusing government employees. “It’s so stupid,” he said. “You know how stupid that sounds to the world?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ot-much-more-corrupt-heres-whats-coming-next/ Trump’s purge just got much more corrupt. Here’s what’s coming next. President Trump’s abrupt decision to remove the inspector general of the State Department constitutes the latest in a string of corrupt efforts to remove public servants who prioritize real oversight and accountability over protecting Trump at all costs. But in the case of Trump’s termination of Steve Linick, the State Department IG, this could end up looking far worse than we know. There’s a backstory here that has not yet gotten scrutiny — one that could make the firing appear even more corrupt. House Democrats have discovered that the fired IG had mostly completed an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s widely criticized decision to skirt Congress with an emergency declaration to approve billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year, aides on the Foreign Affairs Committee tell me. “I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick’s firing,” Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement sent to me. “His office was investigating — at my request — Trump’s phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia.” Committee Democrats have also learned that the State Department was recently briefed on the IG’s conclusions in that investigation, aides say. They do not know what role this investigation — and its conclusions — played in Linick’s removal, if any. But the committee is now trying to establish what those conclusions were and what links they might have to the firing, the aides confirm. “We don’t have the full picture yet, but it’s troubling that Secretary Pompeo wanted Mr. Linick pushed out before this work could be completed,” Engel said in the statement to me. The White House has confirmed Linick’s firing came at Pompeo’s request. Trump claimed he no longer has “confidence” in Linick, a thin justification that highlights Trump’s purging of officials exercising oversight on his administration. Many news organizations have reported that the fired IG had been examining charges that Pompeo had been directing a staffer to run errands for him. Some reported that Pompeo has undertaken abuses of taxpayer funds, including frequent visits to his home state of Kansas. It’s unclear whether these are linked to Linick’s firing. But the fact that Linick has also mostly completed an investigation into the decision to fast-track arms to the Saudis adds another layer to this whole story. Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — and its Senate counterpart — have launched an investigation into Linick’s firing. In letters to the State Department and the White House, they demanded documents be preserved and raised the possibility that the firing might have been an “illegal act of retaliation” against an unspecified ongoing IG investigation into Pompeo. Importantly, the Democrats are also demanding a full accounting of any and all IG investigations into Pompeo that are ongoing — and thus could have been the basis for the firing. One of these IG investigations, it turns out, is into Pompeo’s fast-tracking of arms sales to the Saudis. The Saudi arms deal In the spring of 2019, the Trump administration pushed through a plan for more than $8 billion in weapons sales, almost entirely to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It employed an emergency declaration that under the law supposedly allowed it to proceed without the statutorily required 30-day period during which Congress must be formally notified and has the option of voting to block the sale. The move was condemned by lawmakers in both parties who have increasingly been turning on continued U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which stretches back to the last administration and has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe. Congress subsequently voted to block the arms sales, with some Republican support, but Trump vetoed the effort. At the time, the House Foreign Affairs Committee asked Linick to launch an investigation of the State Department’s and Pompeo’s handling of the arms sales. In their demand for an investigation, committee Democrats argued that the administration had failed to provide adequate justification for the emergency declaration. They noted that one core claim — that the threat from Iran required it — appeared to be a “pretext,” since the House had not been told by Pompeo of the need for the sale in a briefing on Iran only days before. The Democrats also raised questions about potential conflicts of interest surrounding a former State Department official who may have been obligated to recuse himself of involvement in the sale, given his previous role as a lobbyist for Raytheon Co., which made many weapons involved in the transfer. In recent days, aides tell me, the committee has been informed by State Department officials that the IG’s investigation is mostly complete and that the IG’s office briefed State officials on its preliminary findings. A spokesperson for Pompeo didn’t immediately return an email requesting comment. Democrats demand a full accounting Now, as part of Democrats’ demand for a full accounting of all investigations the IG had been running, they also want an accounting of what the IG found in its investigation of the arms sales. “The administration should comply,” Engel told me. Senator Robert Menendez (N.J), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, obliquely alluded to an ongoing IG investigation into the arms sales on NBC News. Menendez noted that IGs are being “massacred on Friday night” for “doing their job.” To reiterate, we don’t know what the IG found on the arms sales, and it’s possible there’s no connection between that and his firing. But at a minimum, the firing of Linick, coming after the removal of numerous other IGs, already shows Trump’s efforts to purge the government of oversight and accountability on his administration are getting much worse. And the timing here demands a full accounting of what the IG found on the arms sales and any possible connection to his firing. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who joined Menendez in advocating for Senate efforts to block the arms sales, pointed to the administration’s “coziness” with the Saudis, which has included a refusal to hold the royal family accountable over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and asked why Trump won’t use these arms sales to exercise “leverage to get them to change their behavior.” “Everybody has been trying to figure out why this relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is so strangely close,” Murphy told me. “If Linick found out the reason, then Congress needs to know.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/na...nal-subpoenas-fired-ig-investigation-n1236211 Pompeo denies congressional subpoenas in fired IG investigation The State Department instructed subpoenaed agency officials not to appear before Congress until "a mutually acceptable accommodation can be reached." WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is denying congressional subpoenas for four key witnesses in a months-long investigation into his role in the firing of State Department Inspector General Steven Linick. The department instructed subpoenaed officials not to appear before Congress until “a mutually acceptable accommodation can be reached,” according to a letter sent late Friday to the Hill and obtained by NBC News. “Let me express how outrageous it is for you to suggest that the Department is ‘stonewalling’ any investigation into the President’s replacing of Steve Linick,“ Pompeo wrote to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel. “For the past three months, you have refused every offer and attempt by the Department to reach a mutually agreeable accommodation to provide you with information you purport to seek.” Pompeo denies Inspector General firing was retaliation, calls allegations ‘crazy stuff’ According to the letter, the State Department offered for the witnesses to appear as soon as Aug. 13th for a classified, on the record hearing before the committees despite Under Secretary for Management Brian Bulatao being the only official with knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Linick’s ousting. “The Administration continues to cover up the real reasons for Mr. Linick’s firing by stonewalling the Committees’ investigation and refusing to engage in good faith," Engel said in a statement Tuesday. "That stonewalling has made today’s subpoenas necessary, and the Committees will continue to pursue this investigation to uncover the truth that the American people deserve." Linick’s replacement, Stephen Akard, director of the Office of Foreign Missions and longtime associate of Vice President Pence, stepped down earlier this week. He was the third person to hold the position in three months. Within hours of Pompeo’s letter, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Woody Johnson was also requested to appear before the committees as part of the probe. Johnson is accused of making racist and sexist comments to embassy staff and misusing his diplomatic post to advance the personal and financial interests of President Donald Trump. The Office of the Inspector General had completed its investigation into Johnson when he was ousted in late May, but the report has yet to be publicly released. "Ambassador Johnson is a valued member of the team who has led Mission UK honorably and professionally. We stand by Ambassador Johnson and look forward to him continuing to ensure our special relationship with the UK is strong," the department said in a statement. Earlier Friday, nominee for U.S. ambassador to Peru and Pompeo’s executive secretary Lisa Kenna, another key witness, appeared voluntarily before the congressional committees in a closed door deposition. In her position as executive secretary, Kenna sees nearly all of the memos and paperwork set before Pompeo and is aware of the majority of his calls. Kenna has denied involvement or awareness of the circumstances surrounding Linick’s removal. Among the four facing congressional subpoenas is Bulatao, a senior adviser and longtime Pompeo friend, who was accused of bullying the IG during the course of his investigations into an $8 billion emergency arms sale as well as a review of Pompeo and wife Susan's potential misuse of Department resources. Bulatao was slated to testify July 2, but the committees delayed the appearance at the request of the State Department, which wanted to review the completed IG report into the emergency arms sale. That report, similarly, has not yet been published. Two key witnesses to the arms sale, acting State Department legal adviser Marik String and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Michael Miller were also among those subpoenaed by the committee, as well as senior adviser Toni Porter, who is central to the investigation into the potential abuse of State Department resources. Pompeo has maintained he was unaware of the inspector general’s ongoing investigations save one and played no role in his recommendation to the president that Linick be removed from the office. “It's not remotely the reason,” Pomeo told Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez in testimony last month. “You said that the IG was not performing in the way he should have, because he wasn't following an essence what you wanted to.” Menedez said in response. “Inspector generals aren't supposed to follow what the department head wants to, they're supposed to be independent in pursuit of their mission.”