Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
How Trump Wins
Democratic law professor Jonathan Turley has distinguished himself lately by standing up against the Media/Dem complex in defending Trump and Trump allies against the lawless Resistance. Today, though, he’s voicing a concern in the other direction.
On Friday night, President Donald Trump fired the State Department’s Inspector General Steve Linick in a troubling and potentially unlawful act.
…The firing of Linick when his office was reportedly investigating the alleged misuse of public resources by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is arguably in violation of federal law and in my view worthy of investigation by both houses. The Inspector General system plays a vital role in combatting corruption and abuse. The President’s actions against multiple inspectors general constitute one of the greatest challenges to that system since its founding.
I think he’s rather overstating the matter there. But let’s stipulate that it would be bad for a President to fire an Inspector General for political reasons. By all means, let’s investigate the firing. I’m okay with it not only because on principle it’s a good idea to safeguard oversight mechanisms, but because I’ve learned some things about Trump’s MO over the last three years.
Investigations into him invariably end up proving that he is innocent and his detractors are guilty. I’d bet dollars to donuts not only that Linick was not actually fired because he had launched a justified and disinterested investigation into dubious acts by Pompeo, but that Trump is holding in his shrewd hands reams of evidence proving that Linick is a deep state co-conspirator.
Time will tell.
Published in General
It would be a good way to trick the MSM into focusing on the deep state anti -Trump conspiracy unwittingly. All their viewers would be tuned in when the evidence was released showing Linick’s connection to it,
Do you actually think the Media or 40%+ of the voters think a Deep State Conspiracy is a bad thing? Remember, this is the vote Fraud, sick the IRS on the Tea Party, by any means necessary crowd. They are blind to their own evil, and don’t care about the Constitution, Law , or Truth. Truth is relative, you know.
I think rather that there remains a fraction of persuadable voters who will not be able to avoid noticing that the MDC keeps shouting SCANDAL! OUTRAGE! and coming up worse than empty.
And it’s already starting to happen. Here’s a WSJ article showing that there was no permanent IG at State during the entire time Hilary Clinton was Sec. of State.
The acting IG, according to the same article, was criticized for being too close to the leadership to do an effective job of oversight. No wonder no one raised a concern about her private server, Benghazi, etc.
Curious, that. It is more curious that ABC, CBS, NBC, or any of the other
usual suspectsBig Media organizations seem to have noticed. The State OIG did criticize Hillary’s private email server — in 2016, after everybody else knew about the server and after it had been determined that the server was against the rules, if not outright illegal.No, Mr. Turley. You are a lawyer, so either state it is illegal or it’s not. If you say the firing is illegal, cite the statute that backs up your assertion. But if you launch into a long-winded dissertation on why you believe it is illegal, you’ve lost any credibility . . .
Good point, Stad.
I think you are on target. Recall the IC Inspector General revising the “whistleblower” reporting rules to enable second- and third-hand accounts to be the basis for reporting just before Biden-ally Eric Ciaramella submitted his Schiff staff coordinated report. Not all of the IGs are good guys.
In this case it wasn’t this particular IG who made the adjustment. But there’s no way with the case involving Ukraine and Marie Yovanovich and her testimony (which was called into question this past week when information about her late 2016 contacts with Burisma came out) that Linick as State Department IG wasn’t asked to weigh in somewhere along the food chain during the Ukrainian kerfuffle between last July and February. Wouldn’t be a shock to learn that Pompeo, who apparently recommended Trump fire Linick, did so due to a lack of IG oversight on State’s anti-Trump wing as it pertained to what they claimed Trump did with Zelensky, and what Yovanovich actually did to contact people there when Obama was still her boss during the transition period.
Some of these IGs appear more political activists than neutral watchdogs. Brief search on this State Dept IG Steve Linick showed he requested meeting with Congress in October 2019 that ABC news reported was about “documents related to the State Department and Ukraine”.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/1/steve-linick-state-department-ig-requests-urgent-m/
Just speculating here, but would not surprise me if this guy Linick was like the Intelligence IG who worked with Mary McCord to assist Adam Schiff with the impeachment attempt. Pompeo is one of Trump’s stalwarts, if they could get him out of the way leaving State without a strong head to ride herd over a dept full of entrenched Trump-hating bureaucrats (not exaggeration) and get last administration’s Ukraine mess to fade away….
Good point. Anyone who can drain their little portion of the swamp is a threat to be eliminated by any means possible. Such was the case with Flynn. I applaud my fellow Ricochetti who suggested Trump appoint Flynn as the new head of the FBI . . .
Ha! So true!
If only it was reported that way. (sigh)