President Donald Trump moved to oust State Department Inspector General Steve Linick on Friday night, the latest in a string of firings as he escalates his administration’s war on oversight. As Politico reports, the president informed Congress that he intended to remove Linick in a letter on Friday night, a move that requires the executive branch to give 30 days notice. In the letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump said he “no longer” had the “fullest confidence” in Linick—who was appointed to the role in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama—and would provide the Senate with a nominee “who has my confidence and who meets the appropriate qualifications.”
According to a State Department spokesperson, Linick’s replacement is Ambassador Stephen Akard, an associate of Vice President Mike Pence who has led the Office of Foreign Missions since September 2019, Politico reported. In 2017, Akard was tapped for the role of director general of the Foreign Service, a nomination that Politico notes upset U.S. diplomats “who said Akard lacked the long tenure of service usually required for such a prestigious position” and was eventually withdrawn. Akard had ties to Pence before joining the Trump administration, working as chief of staff for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation under the then-governor.
Democrats decried Linick’s dismissal, seeing Trump’s move as yet another evasion of accountability. Congressman Eliot L. Engel said he learned that Linick had opened an investigation into Secretary Mike Pompeo, suggesting the inspector general’s “firing amid such a probe” to be “an unlawful act of retaliation.” Citing a Democratic congressional aide, Politico reported that Linick had opened an investigation into Secretary Mike Pompeo’s “alleged misuse of a political appointee to perform personal tasks for him and Mrs. Pompeo.” Engel, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, condemned Trump for “trying to protect one of his most loyal supporters, the secretary of State, from accountability.”
“The president’s late-night, weekend firing of the State Department inspector general has accelerated his dangerous pattern of retaliation against the patriot public servants charged with conducting oversight on behalf of the American people,” Pelosi said in a statement, adding that Linick “was punished for honorably performing his duty to protect the Constitution and our national security, as required by the law and by his oath.”
The ousting of Linick follows similar moves to weed out officials—namely, inspectors general—posing a perceived threat to the president’s power. In another Friday night dismissal earlier this month, Trump ousted Christi Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, who released a report on coronavirus supply shortages that made his administration’s response to the pandemic look bad. And within a matter of days in April, the president dismissed two inspectors general, firing Michael Atkinson over his role in the impeachment proceedings—part of Trump’s ongoing post-impeachment vendetta, despite the public health crisis at hand—and then abruptly removing Pentagon watchdog Glenn Fine, who had been tasked with overseeing the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill.
“Once again, Trump has disposed of an Inspector General whose role was to serve as independent government oversight on behalf of the American people—and once again, he’s appointed a close ally to the role instead,” Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted Saturday. “This is corruption—plain and simple.”
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