The Washington Post is out with a new article regarding a possible reason SOS Pompeo may have had a very serious reason to want the IG gone and that is a potential real problem with the $8 billion deal to sell arms to the Saudis last year.
The House had requested a review by the IG regarding the sale based on the fact that a few days before the emergency deal was announced Pompeo had not mentioned it when appearing before them.
"In the spring of 2019, the Trump administration pushed through a plan for more than $8 billion in weapons sales, almost entirely to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It employed an emergency declaration that under the law supposedly allowed it to proceed without the statutorily required 30-day period during which Congress must be formally notified and has the option of voting to block the sale."
Snip
"House Democrats have discovered that the fired IG had mostly completed an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s widely criticized decision to skirt Congress with an emergency declaration to approve billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year, aides on the Foreign Affairs Committee tell me."
"Committee Democrats have also learned that the State Department was recently briefed on the IG’s conclusions in that investigation, aides say. They do not know what role this investigation — and its conclusions — played in Linick’s removal, if any."
The best 2 tweets I read were
"That is a lot of bone saws".
And
"@myVOpower
Replying to
@ThePlumLineGS
@TelvinGriffin
and
@SecPompeo
"Just had to get Jamal Khashoggi's meddling arms, fingers, knees & toes out of the way first. Right, Mike Pompeo & NiKKKi Haley?"
The link is to the Washington Post article and will use up one of your free articles. I have a feeling more will follow today on free links as the story seems to be developing.
Trumps purge just got serious
Update
Senator Menendez was just on Andrea Mitchell and immediately made reference to the arms sale and said he could "only assume it was to escape Congressional review" and would be a very "serious issue beyond those that had been reported".
"I think he was very close to coming to a conclusion on that" . He said he had been pressing for information what the "legal justification for these emergencies because there was no emergency at the end of the day that could be justified for the arms sales but circumventing the Congressional role of oversight ... was what the secretary did."
Senator Menendez goes on to hope that Congressman Engel will subpoena and bring the IG before the House.
It may well be that a violation of the law "would be something the secretary and the administration would not want to come to light".
Indeed an IG who was critical of other administrations why would suddenly be sacked? Because dt and Pompeo know trouble when they see it.
2nd Update
From CNBC
"The Trump administration in mid-2019 issued an emergency declaration to push through an $8 billion-plus arms deal with the Saudi kingdom and the United Arab Emirates without congressional approval."
"The Democrat-led House voted, mostly along party lines, to block the weapons sale. Trump vetoed the resolutions last July, and the GOP-held Senate failed in an attempt to override the veto."
"uch of the opposition stemmed from the 2018 murder in a Saudi consulate in Turkey of Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, as well as Saudi Arabia’s military endeavors in Yemen. Outlets reported in late 2018 that the CIA found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself had ordered the assassination of Khashoggi, citing people familiar with the matter. The crown prince has denied ordering the killing."