President Trump’s firing of intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson is clearly unethical, and it contradicts the obvious intent of the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008.
Conservatives rightly expressed outrage when former President Barack Obama repeatedly mistreated inspectors general, beginning with AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin early in Obama’s first term. Trump has even less reason to fire Atkinson now than Obama had to fire Walpin then — and the Obama explanation for firing Walpin was manifestly spurious, as key Obama officials later admitted.
Inspectors general are quasi-independent watchdogs against government waste and corruption. They serve a tremendously valuable purpose and are trusted as honest arbiters of propriety. They are technically removable by the president but only if he provides to Congress a specific cause for dismissal. The Senate report language attached to the act explains: “The requirement to notify the Congress in advance of the reasons for the removal should serve to ensure that Inspectors General are not removed for political reasons.”
Trump’s only stated reason for relieving Atkinson was that the president “no longer” has “the fullest confidence” in him. This was quite literally, word for word, the exact language, utterly inadequate, that Obama used in firing Walpin.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, usually a Trump ally, already is raising the alarm against Trump’s action, just as Grassley did when Obama fired Walpin. Inspectors general, he said, “help drain the swamp, so any removal demands an explanation. Congress has been crystal clear that written reasons must be given when IGs are removed for a lack of confidence. More details are needed from the administration.”
Another Republican, Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins, was the co-author of that 2008 law governing inspectors general. “I did not find [Trump’s] rationale for removing Inspector General Atkinson to be persuasive,” she said. “While I recognize that the President has the authority to appoint and remove Inspectors General, I believe Inspector General Atkinson served the Intelligence Community and the American people well, and his removal was not warranted.”
Trump’s firing of Atkinson continues a troubling series of retaliatory measures against nonpolitical public servants, all of whom had otherwise gained good marks for professionalism, whom Trump blames for testimony or actions leading to his impeachment. Since the impeachment, his administration has pushed out numerous officials who either did their duty under oath or who raised alarm bells about the legality of withholding aid to Ukraine, including former National Security Council aide Alexander Vindman and his brother Yevgeny, ambassadors Gordon Sondland and William Taylor, and even the acting comptroller of the Defense Department, Elaine McCusker, whose only sin was internally raising questions about the aid’s postponement.
Again, that is merely a partial list. In none of these cases was there indication of prior political or ideological animus against Trump. In essence, all of them were jettisoned merely for telling the truth or doing their jobs. In Atkinson’s case, he is known as a no-nonsense former prosecutor whose work helped send two Democratic congressmen to prison. In the Ukraine matter, he followed the letter of the law in forwarding to Congress a whistleblower’s report questioning Trump’s actions.
As Atkinson said in a statement released April 5, “our government benefits when individuals are encouraged to report suspected fraud, waste, and abuse.” Inspectors general, and the whistleblowers who report to them, should not be made to fear that “they risk adverse consequences for coming forward when they see something they think is wrong.”
Trump’s retaliatory actions suggest the president is above the law and that anyone who questions him will be punished. This is deeply dangerous to the rule of law.
