{"id":143233,"date":"2020-04-11T06:50:54","date_gmt":"2020-04-11T06:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/attorney-general-trump-was-right-to-fire-intelligence-watchdog\/"},"modified":"2020-04-11T06:50:54","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T06:50:54","slug":"attorney-general-trump-was-right-to-fire-intelligence-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/en\/attorney-general-trump-was-right-to-fire-intelligence-watchdog\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney General: Trump Was Right to Fire Intelligence Watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney General William Barr said the president was right to dismiss the intelligence community inspector general who handled the anonymous whistleblower complaint that prompted a partisan impeachment against the president last year.<\/p>\n

The attorney general made the comments in a Fox News interview<\/a> aired on Thursday, saying that the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, exceeded his authority when he disclosed to Congress the whistleblower complaint that centered around a phone call President Donald Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the vantage point of the Department of Justice, he had interpreted his statute\u2014which is a fairly narrow statute that gave him jurisdiction over wrongdoing by intelligence people\u2014and tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government and immediately reported to Congress without letting the Executive Branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem,\u201d Barr said during the interview.<\/p>\n

On April 3, Trump sent a letter to the Senate intelligence committee and other congressional intelligence officials that he was removing Atkinson from office in 30 days, after having lost confidence in him. The president then appointed National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency general counsel Thomas Monheim to act as his replacement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Atkinson played a central role in the series of events leading up to the impeachment effort against Trump last year. He vetted the anonymous whistleblower complaint and determined that it should be forwarded to Congress as a matter of urgency. The complaint contained allegations about Trumps conduct during a phone call with Zelensky last July.<\/p>\n

The whistleblower, whose name has not been released, admitted in the complaint that he or she was \u201cnot a direct witness to most of the events described\u201d but had received the information from \u201ccolleagues accounts,\u201d which he or she found credible.<\/p>\n

House Democrats used the complaint as a basis to accuse Trump of leveraging his office and withholding U.S. aid to Ukraine to obtain \u201cdirt\u201d on a political opponent\u20142020 Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

A transcript of the call, which was released by the White House shortly after the allegations were made, revealed that Trump had asked Zelensky to \u201clook into\u201d Bidens dealings in Ukraine but hadnt pressured him or used any quid pro quo in the call. Trump has repeatedly described the call as \u201cperfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump was eventually impeached in December by the House of Representatives, which no House Republican voted in favor of, and a few House Democrats voted against. He was acquitted by the Senate earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The presidents decision to dismiss Atkinson was met with rebuke from Democrats, who called it a \u201cretaliatory firing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also criticized Trump<\/a> for the dismissal, calling it a \u201cshameful late-night firing\u201d and a \u201cbrazen act against a patriotic public servant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump defended the firing<\/a>, saying that Atkinson mishandled the whistleblower complaint, which he said did not have to be rRead More \u2013 Source<\/a>
\n[contf]
\n[contfnew]
\n <\/p>\n

The Epoch Times<\/a><\/h5>\n

[contfnewc]
\n[contfnewc]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorney General William Barr said the president was right to dismiss the intelligence community ins..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nAttorney General: Trump Was Right to Fire Intelligence Watchdog - Business News Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Attorney General William Barr said the president was right to dismiss the intelligence community ins..\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/en\/attorney-general-trump-was-right-to-fire-intelligence-watchdog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Attorney General: Trump Was Right to Fire Intelligence Watchdog - 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