{"id":2492,"date":"2020-04-09T17:01:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T17:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=2492"},"modified":"2020-04-09T17:01:38","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T17:01:38","slug":"congress-flummoxed-by-firing-of-top-intel-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=2492","title":{"rendered":"Congress flummoxed by firing of top intel watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Trump has defended<\/a> the firing, telling reporters on Saturday during a White House coronavirus task force briefing that the longtime public official was a \u201ctotal disgrace\u201d for the way he handled a whistleblower complaint that led to the president\u2019s impeachment.”
…
“Meanwhile, Atkinson released a lengthy statement<\/a> Sunday night about his firing, asserting that Trump removed him simply for doing his job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is hard not to think that the president\u2019s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General,\u201d Atkinson wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats have condemned the firing as an abuse of power and a brazen act of politically motivated retribution by a president emboldened after the Senate acquitted him in his impeachment trial. Republicans have been tepid in their criticism of the action, but some, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said the firing \u201cdemands an explanation,\u201d while others largely deferred to the president\u2019s unorthodox leadership style.”
https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/04\/06\/michael-atkinson-inspector-general-senate-hearing-168121<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Trump has defended the firing, telling reporters on Saturday during a White House coronavirus task force briefing that the longtime public official was a \u201ctotal disgrace\u201d for the way he handled a whistleblower complaint that led to the president\u2019s impeachment.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Meanwhile, Atkinson released a lengthy statement Sunday night about his firing, asserting that Trump removed him simply for doing his job.
\n\u201cIt is hard not to think that the president\u2019s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General,\u201d Atkinson wrote.<\/p>\n

Democrats have condemned the firing as an abuse of power and a brazen act of politically motivated retribution by a president emboldened after the Senate acquitted him in his impeachment trial. Republicans have been tepid in their criticism of the action, but some, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said the firing \u201cdemands an explanation,\u201d while others largely deferred to the president\u2019s unorthodox leadership style.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[221,652,294,170,651],"class_list":["post-2492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-donald-trump","tag-firing","tag-impeachment","tag-trump","tag-whistleblower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2493,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492\/revisions\/2493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}