The same State Department watchdog fired Friday by President Trump was the target of an earlier accusation that he engaged in partisan politics — from Hillary Clinton when she was running for president in 2016.
The former secretary of state’s campaign in 2016 attacked ex-inspector general Steve Linick for criticizing her use of a private email server and allegedly leaking negative stories about her to the press.
Defenders of Trump’s firing of him have charged that Linick was biased against the Republican president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whom he reportedly was investigating for improper use of staff and governmental resources — the same charge Dems leveled at the IG when he criticized Clinton, then the presumptive Democratic candidate for president.
In a May 2016 report, Linick was critical of Clinton’s use of a private server to conduct State Department business and her failure to turn over missing emails after she left Foggy Bottom.
“At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act,” the report said, Vox reported at the time.
Bloomberg reported that March that Clinton’s campaign had accused Linick and a deputy, Emilia DiSanto, who had also worked as an investigator for GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, as having leaked negative stories about State during Clinton’s tenure.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta said then that the anonymous source’s accusations in one article raised “serious questions about the independence of this office.”
New York Rep. Eliot Engel, then the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote a letter to Linick demanding he instruct DiSanto to recuse herself from the probe into Clinton’s emails and provide internal records to his committee.
“I regret that the OIG has been brought into the political three-ring circus aimed at derailing Secretary Clinton’s presidential bid,” write Engel, who had endorsed Clinton.
“We need to act quickly and shut down any speculation that impugns the Office’s motives so that you can get back to your important work.”
Engel was among several top Democrats who slammed Trump over the firing, the latest federal watchdog to get the boot from the commander-in-chief.
Democrats launched a formal investigation of Trump for firing Linick, who was appointed to the job by President Barack Obama in 2013.
Trump declared that he “no longer” had the “fullest confidence” in Linick’s work, according to a letter he sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The probe reportedly involves allegations that Pompeo ordered an employee to perform personal services for himself and his wife — including picking up Chinese takeout and walking the dog.
Multiple reports said Monday that Linick had nearly finished a probe into Pompeo’s decision to bypass Congress with an emergency declaration to OK billions in arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2019.