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Trump Wages Major Assault on Government Watchdogs

Masood Farivar

   WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump's recent purge of nearly a
   half dozen independent government watchdogs marked a new first: a
   president firing an inspector general at the urging of an agency head
   who was being investigated for possible wrongdoing.

   Trump fired State Department inspector general Steve Linick last Friday
   at the behest of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both Trump and Pompeo
   acknowledged.

   Linick reportedly was examining allegations that Pompeo and his wife,
   Susan, were using a State Department employee to run household errands,
   including walking their dog and picking up dry cleaning.

   Pompeo also was part of an inquiry into whether the Trump
   administration declared an "emergency" in order to skirt a
   congressional freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
   Emirates, according to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot
   Engel, a New York Democrat.

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