An investigation into whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used a government staffer to run personal errands isn’t the only reason Pompeo might have wanted State Department Inspector General Steve Linick fired. Linick was also investigating whether the administration’s use of an “emergency” to allow arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates was illegal, The New York Times reports.
Congress had suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2017 after bombs manufactured by U.S. defense contractor Raytheon were found to have killed civilian children in Yemen. Donald Trump was not happy—he wanted those sweet, sweet arms sales—saying in 2018, “I want Boeing and I want Lockheed and I want Raytheon to take those orders and to hire lots of people to make that incredible equipment.” Then Saudi Arabia killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, making it awkward once again to argue for selling weapons to the country. But on the Friday before Memorial Day in 2019, Pompeo declared an “emergency” related to Iran that allowed him to resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
In addition to the fact that Pompeo was supposedly using an Iran emergency to give Saudi Arabia the tools to kill children in Yemen, he declared this emergency just three days after a closed-door briefing on Iran with members of Congress in which he hadn’t mentioned it. Congress held hearings in June, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel asked Linick to investigate.
Linick’s investigation was reportedly wrapping up … at least until Pompeo fired him for “undermining” the State Department’s work. “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,” Pompeo said. Uh-huh, sure.
Pompeo denied even knowing that Linick was investigating his use of a State Department political appointee to walk his dog, pick up dry cleaning, and make dinner reservations. It’s quite a pair of investigations, though, from the sheer banality of misusing government resources for personal convenience on small issues to the horror of using a pretext to resume arms sales to a country that is bombing children and dismembering dissident journalists.
Monday afternoon Donald Trump confirmed that the firing was all Pompeo’s call, saying “Mike requested that I do it.” And since Linick had been appointed by former President Barack Obama, Trump was fine with that, no questions asked. Trump also doesn’t see anything wrong with using staffers to do personal errands.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley not-so-convincingly claimed he would “try to get to the bottom” of the firing. Grassley has sent Trump a letter asking for an explanation of the Linick firing … just as he sent Trump a letter asking for an explanation of the firing of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson last month. So we can see how effectively such letters keep Trump from making similar moves.
