6-7 minutes
President Donald Trump on Saturday defended his
decision to fire
the intelligence community’s top watchdog, calling the sacked official a
“total disgrace” over his handling of a whistleblower complaint that
led to the president’s impeachment.
“I thought he did a terrible job. Absolutely terrible,” Trump said of
Michael Atkinson, who was let go from his role as the inspector general
of the intelligence community on Friday
night.
“He took this terrible, inaccurate whistleblower report and he brought it to Congress,” Trump added. The
initial report was largely corroborated by witnesses testimony and the
summary
describing Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine, which
was the subject of the whistleblower complaint.
Speaking
to reporters at the White House, Trump mused about House Intelligence
Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) being the whistleblower’s
“informer,” without citing evidence. Schiff was the public face of the
House’s effort to impeach the president.
“They
give this whistleblower a status that he doesn’t deserve. He’s a fake
whistleblower,” Trump concluded. “And frankly, somebody ought to sue his
ass off.”
Trump’s remarks
underscore his deep, long-running disdain toward the officials and
lawmakers whose actions led to his impeachment in the House over his
alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine’s president to investigate his
political rivals.
Despite Trump’s
vehement defense of his decision to terminate Atkinson, some Republican
senators expressed uneasiness with the president’s actions and praised
Atkinson.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, for example, said the firing of Atkinson “demands an explanation.”
The
Iowa Republican, who crafted the nation’s whistleblower protection
statutes, did not criticize Trump for firing Atkinson, as several top
Democrats did when Trump relieved Atkinson of his duties late Friday
night. But he said the Trump administration should explain the move in
greater detail.
“[Inspectors
general] help drain the swamp, so any removal demands an explanation,”
Grassley said in a statement on Saturday. “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.”
Also on Saturday, the office of the director of national intelligence
announced
that Thomas Monheim, who has served in top legal positions throughout
the intelligence community, was named acting inspector general.
In
a letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees late Friday,
Trump informed lawmakers that he was terminating Atkinson because he no
longer had confidence in him.
Atkinson
drew strong criticism from Trump’s allies after he provided Congress
with the whistleblower complaint that detailed Trump’s interactions with
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among other actions by White
House and State Department officials.
POLITICO
reported
on Saturday that Atkinson sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.) last month in which he said the past six months were
“a searing time for whistleblowers,” and he criticized those who have
failed to defend whistleblowers — without mentioning the president.
“Those
repeated assurances of support for whistleblowers in ordinary matters
are rendered meaningless if whistleblowers actually come forward in good
faith with information concerning an extraordinary matter and are
allowed to be vilified, threatened, publicly ridiculed, or — perhaps
even worse — utterly abandoned by fair weather whistleblower champions,”
Atkinson wrote in the letter to Schumer.
Senate
Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) praised Atkinson
on Saturday for his “professionalism and responsiveness,” but did not
mention the circumstances of Atkinson’s firing.
“Like
any political appointee, the Inspector General serves at the behest of
the Executive,” Burr said. “However, in order to be effective, the IG
must be allowed to conduct his or her work independent of internal or
external pressure.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a moderate who often criticizes Trump’s
conduct, said Atkinson’s removal was “not warranted” and that Trump’s
explanation was not “persuasive.”
“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,” Collins said in a statement.
Top Democrats strongly condemned the move, dubbing it an abuse of
power and an act of politically motivated retaliation. Michael Horowitz,
who chairs the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency, lauded Atkinson for his “integrity, professionalism, and
commitment to the rule of law.”
“That includes his actions in handling the Ukraine whistleblower
complaint, which the then Acting Director of National Intelligence
stated in congressional testimony was done ‘by the book’ and consistent
with the law,” Horowitz added.
A congressional source said that while the House and Senate
intelligence committees were given the 30-day notice of Atkinson’s
removal as required by law, he was immediately placed on administrative
leave, meaning that his tenure effectively ended Friday night.
Burgess Everett contributed to this report.
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