President Donald Trump got condemned again when he recently fired the State Department Inspector General Steve Linick. In a letter addressed to Nancy Pelosi, President Trump said he no longer had the fullest confidence in Linick as Inspector General.
Top Democratic leaders, such as Nancy Pelosi, have claimed that President Trump was committing more acts of “vengeful and dangerous political retaliation.” Linick, at the time, was reportedly investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “Mr Linick’s firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation. The President believes he is above the law.” Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said.
However this is not the entire story…Linick, himself, was under investigation just last year.
General Steve Linick was under investigation last year by the Department of Defense’s inspector general for mishandling sensitive material. The condition was spoken about because of the sensitivity of the matter. Linick has also bounced back and forth in Trump’s impeachment inquiry. He drew national attention when raising the question of whether or not Trump improperly pressed the Ukranian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. This was given in a packet of documents to congressional investigators that he thought might be “useful.” The documents ended up being quite inconsequential.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin even criticized the move Linick played with the documents. “It raises more questions than it answers. The inspector general had no idea where it came from.” Raskin said. The documents were merely conspiracy theories related to Ukraine. Linick had not even taken any action with respect to the documents within the State Department. The documents were handed to Congress after the White House whistleblower complaint, upon which House Democrats are basing their impeachment inquiry, became public. The documents were nothing but a distraction and it was not relevant to anything regarding the impeachment.
The misinformed documents were in the wrong hands. They were distributed and circled around during the process. Linick may have gotten the documents from the State Department counsel but it is quite unsure still.
President Trump has said he’s looking at appointing Stephen Akard, current director of the Office of Foreign Missions, as Linick’s replacement. We all know President Trump loves a good fire. He is the best in the biz at it too.
