Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1157861293-scaled

Why Trump’s purge of the intelligence community inspector general is a big deal

The firing could be called a canary in the coal mine if Washington hadn’t already become littered with canary carcasses warning of a Trumpian dystopia devoid of truth and accountability.

Analysis | Washington Politics

The understandable national preoccupation with the COVID-19 pandemic means insufficient attention to, and outrage about, other nasty things that are happening. This is true of President Trump’s firing of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

The only plausible explanation for the timing of this move, made late on a Friday night, is to take advantage of the distraction that the current public health and economic crisis provides. The move is part of a larger purge by Trump of any officials — including ones who, like Atkinson, were his own appointees — who had any role in the uncovering of Trump’s malfeasance that led to his impeachment.

Atkinson’s role involved receiving and, as required by law, informing congressional oversight committees of a whistleblower’s complaint about Trump pressuring a foreign government to incriminate one of his domestic political opponents.

Trump’s later comments on the firing were typical Trumpian invective: Atkinson "did a terrible job — absolutely terrible…a disgrace to IGs” for, he claimed, passing on a “fake” complaint. And as for the whistleblower, “somebody ought to sue his ass off.”

Also typical for Trump, the invective has no connection to reality. Atkinson was doing his job. Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department IG who also chairs the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, praised Atkinson for his “integrity, professionalism, and commitment to the rule of law and independent oversight.” He pointedly added that this includes Atkinson’s handling of the Ukraine whistleblower complaint, which the then-acting director of national intelligence testified was done “by the book.” The whistleblower also was going by the book, and the complaint, far from being “fake,” proved to be remarkably accurate and useful lead information for subsequent investigation.

The firing continues some all-too-familiar patterns of behavior by Trump, but an inured nation must not allow such patterns to become the new normal. The purge of Atkinson provides two main reasons to be disturbed.

More politicization of intelligence

The first is that it is another step in Trump’s politicization of the U.S. intelligence community, destroying objectivity at the top and hamstringing what objectivity survives below, while attempting to turn the community into a political handmaiden of Trump.  The acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, is an ideological fighter  whose only apparent qualification for the appointment is his singing of political tunes that please Trump.

The nominee for taking the job permanently, John Ratcliffe, who padded his resume to cover his comparably thin qualifications for the position, evidently received the nod because of his defense of Trump in the House judiciary committee’s impeachment hearings.

Another executive suite space vacated by intelligence professionals at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is occupied by Kashyap Patel, who worked for Rep. Devin Nunes in trying to discredit investigations into Russian election interference. Now the inspector general, who of all the senior officials in that office is supposed to be the most independent, is gone.

A consequence of this purging and politicizing is the effective loss of much of the functioning of that part of the U.S. government whose mission is to provide the most truthful and accurate picture possible of security threats to the United States and other overseas events of relevance to U.S. foreign and security policy.

Bureaucracy below the executive suites will continue to operate, but it will be stifled when its message happens to be politically inconvenient to Trump. If that bureaucracy does anything to try to circumvent the stifling, expect more firings. Look what happened to Captain Brett Crozier, the commanding officer of a COVID-19-stricken aircraft carrier whose attempt to get attention for his crew’s plight was politically inconvenient enough that presidential displeasure helped to drive the captain’s ouster.

Don’t expect Congress, even if the opposition party controls at least one of the chambers, to be able to overcome the stifling and politicization to perform effectively its oversight and other functions. Recall that acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire was let go because he permitted, much to Trump’s displeasure, an entirely legitimate expert briefing to the House Intelligence Committee about the status of Russian election interference.

Attacking accountability

A second major reason to be concerned about the firing of Atkinson is that it is a blow against government accountability. Inspectors general are only a part of the accountability process but they are a major part. Persistent vacancies in inspector general positions are one way Trump is undermining accountability — which in the case of IGs includes accountability not just at high levels but all the way down through the ranks of the bureaucracies. Another way is to impede an inspector general’s performance of his or her duties, especially where Congress is involved. Most conspicuously this has included Trump’s declaration that he will not allow the new Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery to overcome the administration’s withholding from Congress of information about how it spends the vast sums authorized by the legislation that created that IG position.

More recently, Trump suddenly ousted the Department of Defense’s IG, Glenn Fine, just days after Fine’s fellow inspectors general had chosen him to chair the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, another oversight mechanism to ensure proper expenditure of COVID-19 economic relief funds.

Trump also uses slurs and innuendo to publicly denigrate inspectors general who reach conclusions not to his liking. He reacted this way after the acting inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services (one of the many places where the permanent IG job is vacant) reported on hospitals’ shortages of coronavirus testing supplies — a report that contradicted some of Trump’s assertions about the availability of tests. Asked by reporters about this, Trump lashed back in characteristic fashion: “When was she appointed?...Could politics be entered in that?...They did serve in the Obama administration?...There’s a typical fake news deal.”  (The acting IG who issued the report is a career official who has served in HHS for two decades.)

Future implications

Americans’ concerns about Atkinson’s firing ought to go beyond intelligence agencies and inspector general offices. The move marks another step toward a Trumpian dystopia in which both truth and accountability are rare. The firing could be called a canary in the coal mine if Washington hadn’t already become littered with canary carcasses warning of that dystopia.

The COVID-19 pandemic, given reported warnings by the intelligence community earlier this year followed by weeks of Trump nonetheless downplaying the danger, suggests how that dystopia will function with future crises. There need be no more worry about Richard Burr trading stocks based on classified information in briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee, because congressional committees won’t get such briefings if the message they convey is politically unwelcome to Trump.


Donald Trump (Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com)
Analysis | Washington Politics
Venezuela regime change means invasion, chaos, and heavy losses
Top photo credit: U.S. Marines infiltrate the beach head as part of an amphibious demonstration at Hat Yao Beach, Kingdom of Thailand, during Cobra Gold 2014, Feb. 14 (US Marine Corps photo)

Venezuela regime change means invasion, chaos, and heavy losses

Latin America

Maximum pressure has long been President Donald Trump’s stance towards the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela — he slapped crippling sanctions on the country during his first term — but in recent days the administration has pushed the stakes even higher.

The Caribbean is currently hosting an astonishing quantity of American naval and air assets, including four Arleigh Burke–class destroyers, a guided missile cruiser, an attack submarine, a Marine Amphibious Ready Group, and a flight of F-35 multirole fighters.

keep readingShow less
Syria’s ticking time bomb
Syrian security forces walk together along a street, after clashes between Syrian government troops and local Druze fighters resumed in the southern Druze city of Sweida early on Wednesday, collapsing a ceasefire announced just hours earlier that aimed to put an end to days of deadly sectarian bloodshed, in Sweida, Syria July 16, 2025. REUTERS/Karam al-Masri

Syria’s ticking time bomb

Middle East

In March of this year, Laya’s world came crashing down.

Following a series of skirmishes in the coastal region of Syria, the country’s transitional government had mobilized forces to put down what it saw as a brewing rebellion among Alawites, a minority offshoot of Shia Islam and the religion of former President Bashar al-Assad. The operation quickly turned into a bloodbath.

keep readingShow less
Israel wants to pay US pastors a stipend to spread the word
Top image credit: Shutterstock AI

Israel wants to pay stipend to US pastors to spread the word

Washington Politics

A newly-created firm called Show Faith by Works is embarking on a “geofencing” campaign to target Christian churches and colleges across the American Southwest with pro-Israel advertisements. The pastors and congregations themselves are seemingly unaware of this campaign, and some have concerns with Israel’s methods to target Christians.

According to the firm’s filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), Show Faith by Works will “geofence the actual boundaries of every Major (sic) church in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Coloardo (sic) and all Christian Colleges during worship times” and then “track attendees and continue to target [them] with ads” on behalf of Israel. The geofencing campaign is part of a larger $3.2 million contract that also includes trying to hire celebrity spokespeople and paying pastors to produce content.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.