A top Senate Republican is placing a hold on two key Trump administration nominees until the White House provides further reasoning for President Trump’s firings of independent watchdogs for the Intelligence Community and the State Department.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, announced the decision on Thursday, noting that so far there has been unsatisfactory justification given by the White House counsel for the ouster of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson in April and of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick in May.
As he waits for a “sufficient” explanation, the Iowa Republican said he intended to object to any unanimous consent request relating to the nominations of Christopher Miller to be director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Marshall Billingslea to be the undersecretary for arms control and international security at the State Department.
Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel who joined the Trump administration in October 2018 and led Trump’s impeachment defense in the Senate, made the case to Grassley in a five-page letter in late May that the president had the constitutional right to remove inspectors general with little explanation, propped up by historical precedents set by past presidents.
“President Trump appreciates and respects your longstanding support for the role that inspectors general play. The president is similarly committed to supporting inspectors general. … President Trump expects that inspectors general, like all other executive officers, will fulfill their proper role as defined by Congress and ultimately as constrained by the Constitution,” Cipollone wrote to Grassley. “When the president loses confidence in an inspector general, he will exercise his constitutional right and duty to remove that officer — as did President Reagan when he removed inspectors general upon taking office and as did President Obama when he was in office.”
Cipollone said Trump removed Atkinson and Linick “consistent with these principles.” In Linick’s case, he noted, “as the secretary of state has said publicly … the president exercised this authority at the secretary’s recommendation.” The Trump lawyer added that “in both cases, the president did so in a manner that was consistent with the requirements of the Constitution and of federal law.”
Grassley, who has burnished a reputation for being a defender of inspectors general, previously said that this explanation “failed” to meet the “notice requirement” in the Inspector General Act of 1978, and on Thursday, he entered a statement into the congressional record announcing the holds.
“Though the Constitution gives the president the authority to manage executive branch personnel, Congress has made it clear that should the president find reason to fire an inspector general, there ought to be a good reason for it,” Grassley said. “The White House’s response failed to address this requirement, which Congress clearly stated in statute and accompanying reports. I don’t dispute the president’s authority under the Constitution, but without sufficient explanation, the American people will be left speculating whether political or self-interests are to blame. That’s not good for the presidency or government accountability.”
Atkinson’s actions last year led up to what became an impeachment investigation run by the Democratic-led House.
He received a whistleblower complaint from a CIA analyst about a phone call Trump had with Ukraine’s president in which he spoke about a CrowdStrike conspiracy theory and pressed for Ukraine to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden. Atkinson determined the complaint was “urgent” and “credible” before forwarding it to then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who didn’t give Atkinson permission to share it with Congress but did allow him to notify lawmakers of its existence. An impeachment investigation run by the Democratic-led House ensued.
The president was impeached by the House in December but was acquitted on both articles of impeachment by the Senate in February.
In April, Trump called Atkinson “a disgrace to IGs” and suggested he fired the watchdog as payback for impeachment.
Linick’s firing caused an uproar last month after it was revealed he was investigating matters potentially related to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Still, some Republican senators said they were given good reason for Linick being tossed, though that explanation still hasn’t been made public. Democratic lawmakers claim Linick told them behind closed doors that a State Department official tried to “bully” him into ending an inquiry into Pompeo.
Grassley criticized Linick for not fully assessing the State Department’s role in spreading British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier within the U.S. government.
