A top Senate Republican withdrew his objection to two Trump national security official nominees on Thursday after receiving more answers from the White House about President Trump’s reasons for removing two independent watchdogs this year.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, announced the reversal on Thursday, two weeks after placing the holds. The Iowa senator had blocked their nominations because he viewed the White House had provided him an unsatisfactory justification for the ouster of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson in April and of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick in May.
Grassley said last week he received two letters: one from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone “concerning the removal” of Atkinson and another from the State Department containing a copy of recent correspondence between the Trump administration and the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency requesting that the council investigate “specific allegations into the conduct” of Linick.
The Iowa Republican said he would no longer object to unanimous consent requests on the nominations of Christopher Miller to be the 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 after he reviewed these letters, which pointed to Trump’s comments criticizing Atkinson and suggestions that Linick may have mishandled a leak investigation.
“Without making comment regarding the veracity of the allegations made against Mr. Linick, I believe that these letters fulfill the President’s requirement to provide Congress reasons for the removal of the IC IG and the State IG, as required by the Inspector General Reform Act,” Grassley said.
With regard to the firing of Atkinson, the Friday letter included “a transcript of President Trump providing his reasons for removing Mr. Atkinson to the press” during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press conference in April. Grassley said the White House “has informed me that those reasons represent the president’s official explanation of Mr. Atkinson’s removal to Congress.” He also said, “I believe that this transcript, and its transmittal to Congress, has fulfilled the statutory notice requirement of the Inspector General Reform Act.”
Grassley said, however, that “even though the president satisfied the requirements of the law, I do not agree that the provided reasons merited Mr. Atkinson’s removal.”
The senator quoted some of Trump’s April comments: “I thought [Atkinson] did a terrible job. Absolutely terrible. … But ask him, ‘Why didn’t you go and see the [transcript of my phone call with the Ukrainian president]?’ There was no rush. [Atkinson] said, ‘Oh, we’d have to rush it.’”
Grassley said he disagreed with this reasoning.
“Notably, the law also does not require that a full investigation of a whistleblower’s allegations be completed before the information is provided to Congress. Reading such a requirement into the law could result in critical and relevant information not reaching the ODNI or Congress in a timely manner and could pose a chilling effect on whistleblowers’ willingness to report urgent concerns and other issues of waste, fraud, and abuse in the intelligence community,” the senator said. “That being said, I understand and appreciate the president’s irritation with this IG’s action being a factor in the House of Representative’s impeachment.”
Grassley also noted that Trump has said that “they give this whistleblower a status that he doesn’t deserve … and, frankly, somebody ought to sue [him].” But the senator argued, “I obviously do not agree that person should be sued or otherwise retaliated against.”
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.
Grassley also said Thursday that the State Department’s correspondence with CIGIE gave four reasons for Linick’s removal, “all” of which involved “the investigation of the leak of information to a news reporter pertaining to an IG report.” The letter to CIGIE requested an investigation into Linick’s alleged transgressions, including: a “failure to formally refer to CIGIE … the investigation of [the] leak,” “hand selection” of the Pentagon watchdog to conduct the leak investigation, “non-compliance” with State Department’s watchdog email policies, and a “refusal” to provide State Department leadership with a copy of the leak investigation report despite “repeated requests.”
The Iowa Republican said that “these claims are as of yet unverified, but the president has offered an additional briefing on the matter from State Department officials.”
“I have not yet had the opportunity to verify the allegations,” Grassley said, adding that “the president retains the constitutional authority to manage executive branch personnel.”
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. Democratic lawmakers claimed Linick told them behind closed doors that a State Department official tried to “bully” him into ending an inquiry into Pompeo. Linick’s 253-page testimony was released last week.
Grassley previously 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.
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.
“When the president loses confidence in an inspector general, he will exercise his constitutional right and duty to remove that officer,” Cipollone wrote at the time.
Cipollone said Trump removed Atkinson and Linick “consistent with these principles.”
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 entered a statement into the Congressional Record announcing the holds in late May.
