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Secretary of State asks president to fire Inspector General investigating Secretary of State

By Paul Campos

On May 18, 2020

At 4:26 pm

In General

2413 Views

President says, sure, why not?

Trump again says Pompeo asked him to fire the IG. He then says Pompeo should've should've done it a long time ago, since "he's an Obama appointment and he had some difficulty." Trump says, it seems, that he invited his officials to make recommendations on their IGs.— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 18, 2020

Told that Pompeo was reportedly under investigation by the IG Trump is now saying Pompeo recommended he fire, Trump says, "I don't know anything about it."— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 18, 2020

Somehow I can believe that.

(Pompeo):“I went to the President and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn’t performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he’s supposed to be doing,” he said in an interview with the Post. “The kinds of activities he’s supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us.”
He did not go into details about what specifically displeased him about Linick’s job performance.
…
“It is not possible that this decision, or my recommendation, rather, to the President, rather, was based on any effort to retaliate for any investigation that was going on, or is currently going on,” Pompeo said. “Because I simply don’t know. I’m not briefed on it. I usually see these investigations in final draft form 24 hours, 48 hours, before the IG is prepared to release them.”
“So it’s simply not possible for this to be an act of retaliation. End of story,” he said.
…
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, said Monday that the ousted IG had almost finished an investigation into Pompeo’s decision to fast-track an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

Later on Monday a congressional aide confirmed that Pompeo had refused to sit for an interview with the inspector general’s office as part of that investigation.

h/t Keta.