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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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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