Trump’s Slow-Motion Friday Night Massacre of Inspectors General

Trump has removed 3 inspectors general on a Friday night in the last 6 weeks.

In each case, he had a rather clear political motivation.

Right before our eyes he's eliminating all oversight and obstructing justice.

Time is running out.

THIS IS A BIG DEAL.  THIS IS THE CORRUPTION ON AN UNIMAGINABLE LEVEL.  THIS IS A CODE RED ALARM.  

The Friday news dump — also known as the Friday night news dump — is a political trick with plenty of precedent. Wait till the vast majority of the news business clocks out for on the week, and announce something you’d rather they not cover as much. People won’t be reading as much news at that point anyway, and perhaps it’ll be dismissed as old news by Monday morning.

Few are as blatant about using this tactic, though, as the Trump White House.

The unprecedented spate of removals has reinforced how Trump is rather obviously seeking to undermine independent oversight of his administration — and the timing of each of them only reinforces that.

Here's our summary based on what we have gathered from various articles:

May 15, 2020 - Steve Linick, State Department Inspector General (firing not official for 30 days from May 15)

- Reportedly looking into the $8,000,000,000 arms sale to Saudi Arabia that circumvented Congress and his “misuse of a political appointee” to perform personal tasks.

May, 15, 2020 - Acting Transportation Department inspector general Mitch Behm (firing not official for 30 days from May 15)

- Uncertain at the time of writing this. It's possible he was looking into the rampant, massive wrongdoing and corruption of Mitch McConnell's wife Elaine Chao who leads the department.

May 1, 2020 - Christi Grimm, HHS Inspector General

- Warned of “widespread” and “severe” shortages of testing supplies and PPE

April 7, 2020 - Glenn Fine, Defense Department Inspector General

- Was chosen by Congress to oversee $2,000,000,000,000 in coronavirus emergency funds

April 3, 2020 - Michael Atkinson, Intelligence Community Inspector General

- Told Congress about whistleblower complaint that led to Impeachment

Trump has also over he last month-plus replaced a pair of acting inspectors general with oversight of the coronavirus response, with the latest being the acting Transportation Department inspector general on Friday night. Though those carry less apparent whiffs of political motivation, their roles on the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee make the timing notable.

Please read our recent articles discussing several of these in more depth:

http://smartdissent.com/article/trump-fires-head-oversight-covid-rescue-funds-lets-revisit-our-2017

http://smartdissent.com/article/trump-fires-intelligence-official-who-refused-hide-trumps

Additional source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/16/trumps-slow-moving-friday-night-massacre-inspectors-general/