US President Donald Trump, late yesterday, fired Steve Linick, the State Department Inspector General and this led to strong criticism, according to news reports, ‘from senior Democratic lawmakers.’
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

US President Donald Trump, late yesterday, fired Steve Linick, the State Department Inspector General. The said ousting has led to strong criticism, according to news reports, "from senior Democratic lawmakers which include Nancy Pelosi, the House of Representatives Speaker.

In his letter to Pelosi, President Trump said he does not have confidence anymore, in the ability of the inspector general to serve, although no reason was indicated for the government leader's loss of confidence.

The president wrote, he "is exercising my power as President," to remove the State Department's Inspector General from office. The ousting takes effect, the president said, 30 days from when the letter was dated.

The letter did not specify who would be Linick's replacement. Relatively, the fired Inspector General was appointed to the position in 2013, under the administration of former President Barrack Obama.

He is also considered as the latest in a string of the so-called "government watchdogs" to be ousted in the past few weeks.

Nevertheless, according to the US State Department said, the Office of Foreign Missions director, Stephen Akard, would replace Linick.

It was in September 2019 when the Senate confirmed Ambassador Akard, as the head of the department, and, according to the State Department, they are looking forward to him, heading the Office of the Inspector General.

Series of Previous Removals from Positions

Democratic lawmakers reportedly condemned the removal of Linick with the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel suggesting that the ousting was in connection to an investigation the ex-inspector general had opened to Mike Pompeo, the State Secretary.

In a statement, Engle said he found out that the Office of the Inspector General had opened a probe into Pompeo. More so, the House Speaker described the ousting of Linick as a speeding up of a risky pattern of revenge from the president. Meanwhile, there is no immediate response from the State Department to a comment request.

In April, President Trump removed Glenn Fine, who was considered a top COVID-19 watchdog and tasked to administer the COVID-19 financial relief aid of the government.

A day before Fine's removal, Trump had reportedly affirmed without any evidence, saying, an inspector general reported warning of shortages of testing for COVID-19 "in hospitals was just wrong," not to mention, twisted by political partiality.

Then, earlier this month, the president removed Christi Grimm, who was known to have "led the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General" after she was accused of producing a "fake dossier" on US hospitals that suffered shortages on the frontliners of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Also in April, President alerted Congress he was removing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the US intelligence community, who got involved in activating an impeachment investigation of him last year.

The president defended his decision by complaining that Atkinson never spoke to him regarding the complaint that led to the impeachment probe, even though it was the latter's job to give the White House's oversight independent.

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