The Daily - Trump’s Purge of the Watchdogs

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

It used to be rare for a president to fire an inspector general, a position created within government agencies after Watergate and assigned to fight waste and corruption. Today, we look at what President Trump’s pattern of replacing inspectors general reveals about the nature of the independent office — and about presidential power. Guest: Maggie Haberman, who covers the White House for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Mr. Trump decided to fire Steve A. Linick, the Department of State’s inspector general, last week. Mr. Linick had opened an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s spending habits. Congressional Democrats have now opened an investigation into the firing.The president also recently fired the intelligence community’s inspector general. Our chief White House correspondent explains why Mr. Trump’s drive against those he considers disloyal continues even during a pandemic.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, President Trump has fired the Inspector General for the Department of State, whose investigation posed a threat to his administration. Maggie Haberman on the pattern that that reveals. It's Tuesday, May 19th. Maggie, where does the idea of an inspector general come from?

So the idea of inspectors general, who are basically public watchdogs, emerged out of the Watergate era. I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace after abusing his office. But as president, I must put the interests of America first. Faith in government dipped substantially among the public.

By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America. which is so desperately needed in America. And this idea came about of permanent government oversight at each federal agency of the executive branch, and each one would have their own watchdog in place. And they are supposed to do audits of operations. They're investigating reports of waste or fraud or abuse. These oversight officers were essentially a bulwark against corruption, a bulwark against the type of abuses that took place during the Nixon era. So a kind of internal affairs department

inside each agency of the executive branch. That's exactly right. Inside each agency of the executive branch was somebody who people could report tips to. And the IG could then investigate those and decide whether those were substantiated or not substantiated. And if they decide that there is something real there, they would immediately notify Congress within a week, within seven days.

And so there is supposed to be this chain of accountability that exists with the IGs. And the final chain is Congress, so an entirely different branch of government. Exactly. And how are these inspectors general regarded after this law is passed? They are very respected. What was originally 12 inspectors general expanded and became dozens and dozens across the executive branch. And over the years, they have launched investigations into strippers, casinos, Las Vegas. It sounds like a wild bachelor party, but instead, it's Pentagon employees using their government-issued credit cards.

Wasteful spending into fraud. A new report by the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security finds the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or CIS, improperly granted citizenship. Into conflicts of interest, into abuse. The Justice Department released details of a 2004 CIA inspector general's report detailing chilling interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. And for the most part, presidents choose not to tangle with them. There are some notable exceptions.

Ronald Reagan, for instance, replaced all of the inspectors general on day one. He said that he wanted a clean slate. George W. Bush raised some eyebrows with how he handled a NASA inspector general, for instance. And then we get to 2009. President Obama had been in office for only a handful of months. And at that point, he abruptly fires the inspector general, Gerald Walpin. Barack Obama fired Gerald Walpin. He is the inspector general of the Corporation and National Community Service. That is the federal agency responsible for distributing money to organizations like AmeriCorps.

Who was overseeing investigations into AmeriCorps and other national service programs and how money was being spent on them. He was investigating a close political pal of President Obama's. And one of the people who Walpin was investigating was the Sacramento mayor and a former NBA basketball star, Kevin Johnson. He was an Obama supporter. And the fact that there was a connection between the president and this person who was connected to one of the groups that Walpin was looking at raised a lot of eyebrows. Well, actually, I was fired because I was doing my job and doing it well in supporting my staff who are...

And President Obama alerted Congress that he had lost confidence in Walpin and was going to remove him from that position. Hmm. move him from that position. And did he say why he lost confidence? He did not get into why he had lost confidence. He didn't really offer any full explanation. What we have here is a bigger problem with inspector generals that we got to watch this administration on.

And at the time, Chuck Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa, who has been very, very assiduous in his support for the IGs, was disturbed by what took place. And I use inspector generals tremendously in my oversight work. So I'm going to fight hard to make sure they maintain their independence. He said that the time that he thought it looked as if Walpin had been doing a good job, that he had identified a lot of money in America funds that had not been used properly. The criticism of this move by Obama, it should be remembered,

was not just Republicans. Claire McCaskill, Senator from Missouri, who was an Obama supporter, was very critical of Walpinens firing at the time. And this was the last time that Obama did this. Hmm. So lesson learned. Don't mess with inspector generals. Right. Or lesson certainly appeared to have been learned. It was a hot stove that he touched and he never touched it again. But from there, we got to President Trump, who throughout his term has been extremely skeptical of inspectors general. Why?

He's a business guy, Michael. He has never been in government before. And the idea of having this in-house adversarial relationship, somebody who works for him, but who is there to tell him if he's doing things wrong, is just a concept that's anathema to him. And so he has chafed at it and has found it uncomfortable, to put it mildly. And then when they have started to do things that upset him, he becomes very angry. And that is what has led us to this unprecedented moment of, in the last two months, the president waging open war on the inspectors general. We'll be right back. Maggie, tell us about this unprecedented war that President Trump is waging on these inspectors general.

So there have been four inspectors general who he has targeted. And in each case, he has felt some level of threat from each of them, it seems. Michael Atkinson was the first one. And what's important about Atkinson is he is the person who received a whistleblower complaint from an official in the intelligence community who was detailed to the White House. related to foreign policy, to force Ukraine's government into announcing investigations related to Joe Biden and his son that could have personal political benefit for the president. Atkinson found that complaint to be credible enough to have raised a quote-unquote urgent concern. And it, under that label, had to be disclosed to Congress. And this report from Atkinson is what triggered the impeachment inquiry into the president. The president last fall, before there were actual hearings related to the impeachment,

but while Congress was starting to look at this, the president talked to his advisors about firing Michael Atkinson at the time. The president's advisors told him this was a really bad idea. That if he did this, he was just throwing gasoline on an existing fire. So he waited. And the president was acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial on February 5th. And he dismissed Atkinson a handful of weeks later. a handful of weeks later. And what does the president say when he fires Atkinson?

Does he acknowledge that it appears to be an act of retribution for Atkinson's role in the impeachment? No, the president does not acknowledge that at all. I thought he did a terrible job. Absolutely terrible. He says that he's lost confidence in Atkinson. And he says this in a letter to Congress. He took a whistleblower report,

which turned out to be a fake report. It was fake. It was totally wrong. It was about my conversation with the president of Ukraine. He took a fake report and he brought it to Congress. That was as much of a reason as Congress was given. That man is a disgrace to our Jews. All right, let's go next.

And I guess as much of a reason as the president needed to give Congress. All that he needed to say and the way that he described it in his letter to Congress was, as is the case with regard to other positions where I, as president, have the power of appointment by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general. That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general. That's as much as they got. And Maggie, what is the reaction in Congress, and I guess beyond Congress, to this firing of this inspector general? There was a large outcry. We're in the middle of a pandemic. And what is this president doing as thousands of people are dying?

He is retaliating against people that are on his enemies list and doing it in the dead of night. Listen, he got fired for political reasons. He got fired because the president believes that a deep state exists, a group of civil servants that are out to get him. That is not true. Democrats and even some Republicans said they were enormously troubled by what appeared to be an act of political retribution. But there was no consequence for this president. He's right. It's within his power of appointment as president. So he did it again a couple weeks later with another IG. And who is the second inspector general who was targeted by the president? Next up was Glenn Fine,

who had been the acting inspector general for the Department of Defense since prior to President Trump took office. Now, Michael, what was notable about Fine was that he was about to become the chairman of a new committee that was going to do oversight on the spending in response to the coronavirus pandemic. This was going to be oversight of $2.2 trillion in coronavirus relief.

So he was going to make sure that money was being properly spent. He was going to account for it. That's right. Fine was going to be the watchdog for this massive amount of government spending. The president abruptly moved him out of his office, and therefore he couldn't be the chairman of that committee. It seemed as if the president wanted to move out somebody who didn't report directly to him or who was not promoted by him and not handpicked by him in the first place, that he wanted somebody who more fit

that bill to sit on that committee that would be overseeing the spending of this $2.2 trillion. of this $2.2 trillion. Next on the list was the principal deputy inspector for the Department of Health and Human Services, Christy Grimm. She had done a report that was based on a number of interviews with hospitals all over the country, and those pinpointed massive shortages of supplies at various medical centers, efforts and struggles to obtain test kits,

gear for hospital workers, ventilators that we've heard so much about since. Despite the nearly 1.8 million tests that you say the United States has done, the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services released a report today, a survey of more than 300... The president was really unhappy about this report.

What he said to reporters at the time was, it's just wrong. It's just wrong. Did I hear the word Inspector General? Really? It's wrong. And they'll talk to you about it. It's wrong.

Then he asked about who had written the report. Well, where did he come from, the Inspector General? What's his name? It came from the Inspector General report. I don't know his name. Well, find me his name from, the inspector general? What's his name? It came from the inspector general report. I don't know his name. Find me his name, let me know, okay? If you find me his name, I'd appreciate it. He's asking reporters for the name of the inspector general

who has done something that has upset him. He was asking reporters to figure out for him, and he was assuming it was a male, it was a woman, who had written this report. Three weeks after Christy Grimm wrote this report, President Trump announced her replacement. Okay, so that brings us, I believe, to Inspector General No. 4. What is the story there? Inspector General No. 4, Steve Linick, had, according to Democratic Congressional Aides,

opened up an inquiry into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife, and whether they were misusing a political appointee at the State Department to serve them, essentially, to perform menial duties like walking their dog, making restaurant reservations, picking up dry cleaning. And at the same time, Linick had been looking into and was close to finishing an investigation into Pompeo's decision to go around Congress with an emergency declaration to approve billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year. There was an enormous outcry in Congress that this did not go through approval by congressional officials at the time. And Linick was looking into this. So the issue here is whether or not the State Department kind of created a false sense of urgency around approving an arms sale to the Saudi Arabian

government. That's exactly right. And that report, as I said, was close to completion. So these two investigations were going on, and we are told that Mike Pompeo told the president that he thought that Linick should be fired. So on Friday, that's exactly what happened. Another late Friday night ousting of an inspector general. Linick was announced as departed. What has been the reaction to this fire? Democrats are very upset about this. We need to know why an inspector general all of a sudden gets sacked on a Friday night, added to the three other IGs that have been sacked. The fact is, if it looks like it's in

retaliation for something that the inspector general is doing, that could be unlawful. But given what's happening with coronavirus, given that the attention of the country is largely on either the deaths caused by the virus or the economic devastation caused by the response to dealing with the virus, this has not broken through in the way that it might in any other moment in time. Hmm. How are Republicans reacting to this ouster?

With the exception of some concern from Chuck Grassley, who's been consistent about inspectors general, and Mitt Romney, who was very critical, and who was the only Republican vote in favor of impeachment against President Trump, there has been radio silence from Republicans on this. It feels like the events of the past few months reveal a pretty central flaw in the original creation of the Inspector General,

which is that it allows the president to fire these independent figures, right? I mean, it's interesting that it was created in the aftermath of Watergate as a check against bad actions in government, and yet Watergate was all about a president being abusive, and here you have a law that allows a president to fire those internal watchdogs. Michael, I think you've identified the exact problem with this law, which is that it's only as good

as the honor system around it. Because if it's just another piece of the president's power, if the president isn't going to abide by what these inspectors general find and let them do their investigations, then it's not worth very much. So the political consequences

of the president are, at this point, uncertain for removing these inspector generals. But I'm curious what you think the consequences are for the inspector generals who remain throughout the executive branch. I mean, will this affect how they do their job? Michael, I think that we're never going to know for certain, most likely. But I could see scenarios where inspectors general feel like they can't open an investigation because if they do, it's just going to get shut down. Or they get pieces of information and they want additional confirmation before they'll pursue something. It could absolutely have a chilling effect on how these folks do their jobs. Have any of these fired or dismissed inspector general spoken out since they lost their jobs?

There was a really remarkable statement that Michael Atkinson, the dismissed intelligence community inspector general, put out. And he defined this as a message he was leaving for, quote, any government employee or contractor who believes they have learned of or observed unethical, wasteful, or illegal behavior in the federal government. And he had a very dramatic line in it talking about the significance of his office. The American people deserve an honest and effective government. They are counting on you to use authorized channels to bravely speak up. There is no disgrace in doing so. And then he goes on to talk about the importance of whistleblower programs and says,

please do not allow recent events to silence your voices. Maggie, thank you very much. Michael, thank you very much. Michael, thank you. On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged in an interview that he had asked President Trump to fire the inspector general of the State Department, but said that it was not an act of retaliation. Democrats remain skeptical. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent President Trump a letter demanding a detailed explanation for the firing. In the letter, Pelosi called it, quote, part of a pattern of undermining the integrity of the inspectors general and therefore our government. We'll be right back. Thank you. to obtain the information that the world needed. And that failure cost many lives. In a speech at the annual meeting of the World Health Organization,

the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, pointedly criticized the group, saying it had mishandled the original outbreak of the virus in China by promoting misinformation from the government there. The status quo is intolerable. WHO must change, and it must become far more transparent and far more accountable. At the meeting, leaders of the World Health Organization said that they would review their response to the pandemic,

something that several member countries, including the U.S., have demanded. And. I've taken it for about a week and a half now, that several member countries, including the U.S., have demanded. And... I've taken it for about a week and a half now, and I'm still here. During a news conference on Monday, President Trump said that he has been taking doses of hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against the virus, despite a lack of evidence that it works. Can you explain, sir, though, what is the evidence that it has a preventative effect?

Here we go. You ready? Here's my evidence. I get a lot of positive calls about it. The only negative I've heard was the study where they gave it, was it the VA, with, you know, people that aren't big Trump fans gave it. And we've done the greatest... The Times reports that the president's disclosure has alarmed doctors who fear it may encourage Americans to use the drug. The Food and Drug Administration has previously issued a safety warning about the medicine, saying that it can cause serious heart problems and should not be used outside of hospitals or clinical trials.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.