A State Department officer investigating Pompeo's termination due to abuse of power.
The inspector general of the State Department, who was reportedly looking into allegations by a State Department whistleblower of possible abuse of power against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was removed by the Trump administration.
Steve Linick, the inspector general, received notice of his termination. Stephen Akard, an Indiana native and close associate of the then Vice President Mike Pence took over as the new inspector general. Akard, who was heading the office for foreign missions, assumed the role of acting inspector general immediately, according to a State Department spokesman.
A Democratic congressional staffer claims that Linick had launched an investigation into claims made by Susan and him, that Pompeo had been using a political appointee at the state department to conduct personal errands for them, before his abrupt removal.
By US law, the president must provide Congress with 30 days' notice before dismissing an inspector general to allow them to look into the causes. Congress has not utilized the one-month notice period to stop the president from firing additional watchdog personnel in recent months.
"It is vital that I have the utmost confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General," Trump wrote in a letter to the House Speaker. Concerning this Inspector General, such is no longer the case.
Linick was the most recent in a series of watchdog officials dismissed by the president in recent months, upending the custom that these positions are held by impartial individuals. Officials in the Trump administration were expected to pledge personal allegiance, particularly those with oversight responsibilities.
Democratic chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel stated, "This firing is the outrageous act of a president trying to shield one of his most loyal supporters, the secretary of state, from accountability." "I have discovered that Secretary Pompeo is the subject of an inquiry by the Office of the Inspector General.
Linick is not the first inspector general to be fired late on a Friday night; the fact that he was fired amid an investigation like this one strongly implies that this was an illegal act of retaliation. Trump fired Inspector General Michael Atkinson of the intelligence community on April 3 of that year. Atkinson had initially found a complaint from a State Department whistleblower deemed credible, voicing concerns about Trump's call to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the counterpart of Ukraine, last summer. This call ultimately sparked the start of the impeachment process against the president.
Christi Grimm, the lead deputy inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, was fired by President Trump on May 1st, following her publication of a report detailing a medical supply shortfall at hospitals across the nation during the coronavirus outbreak.
Former Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich tweeted, "Let's be clear: all of these moves are punishment for doing the jobs the law authorizes and requires IGs [inspectors general] to do."
"Until Congress takes these retaliatory firings seriously, this will not end. A VP crony's selection intensifies the politicization of positions that are supposedly nonpartisan by statute. Another significant norm was violated.”
According to reports from a State Department whistleblower in 2019, Pompeo used his security detail to handle household duties including getting groceries and picking up the family dog from the groomer.