The Trump administration has recently moved to oust 4 government watchdogs.

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05/17/20

Ledyard King
USA TODAY

Corrections and clarifications:The article has been updated to clarify that Christi Grimm remains in charge of the inspector general's office for the Health and Human Services but that President Donald Trump has nominated someone else to run the office.


WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's decision Friday to fire his department's inspector general marks the fourth time within the last three months that an internal agency watchdog has been targeted for removal by the Trump administration.

IGs are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Working within the agency they monitor, the inspector generals and their staffs are charged with reporting on government malfeasance and corruption.

Here's a look at the inspector generals who have been ousted recently:

State Department
State Department IG Steve Linick was appointed in 2013 during the Obama administration after serving other senior roles in the U.S. government.

A State Department official declined to say why Linick was fired, and the White House did not explain the move in a letter informing lawmakers.

But a Democratic aide, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said the IG was probing allegations that Pompeo used a political appointee at the State Department "to perform personal tasks for himself and Mrs. Pompeo."

Linick also oversaw the contentious investigation of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server and criticized her actions in a 2016 report.

Health and Human Services
On May 1, Trump announced he would nominate a new HHS inspector general to run the office now headed by top deputy IG Christi Grimm. The announcement came three weeks after the release of a report from her office that hospitals nationwide were struggling to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

The April 3 report, based on a survey of more than 300 hospitals, described "severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results" as well as "widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (that) put staff and patients at risk" at a time when Trump was touting the federal response to the crisis.

The day after he was asked about the report during a press briefing, Trump tweeted that the report was a "Fake Dossier" written by someone with political motivations.

Grimm first joined the IG's office in 1999, serving in both Republican and Democratic administrations. She'll remain as the top deputy in the HHS inspector general's office when the Senate confirms a permanent IG.

Department of Defense
Trump replaced acting Defense Department Inspector General Glenn Fine on April 6, removing not only the Pentagon's top internal watchdog but also a key figure overseeing the trillions being spent by Washington to mitigate the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Fine had been selected by fellow inspectors general to chair the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, created after Congress passed a roughly $2 trillion stimulus bill known as the CARES Act in late March to help large industries, small businesses and health care providers weather the crisis. The House Friday passed a bill that could add another $3 trillion to the effort.

Trump signaled his displeasure with the law's oversight provision when he issued a relatively rare signing statement. Trump said he would ignore portions of the law demanded by some Democrats to give Congress additional visibility into the stimulus spending, arguing that those requirements would infringe on the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

Intelligence

On April 3, President Donald Trump announced he had fired the intelligence committee watchdog who handled a whistleblower's complaint involving Trump's pressure campaign against the Ukranian president that triggered his impeachment.

Michael Atkinson reviewed the complaint that alleged Trump “used the power of his office” to solicit foreign help in the 2020 election, determining in late August that the complaint appeared credible.

Ousted Inspector General Michael Atkinson

The then-acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, prevented him from passing along the complaint to Congress within seven days, as is typically required for national-security whistleblower complaints, after consulting with the White House and Justice Department

Contributing: Deirdre Shesgreen, Kevin Johnson, Tom Vanden Brook



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...in/5206160002/