Trump removes inspector general overseeing $2 trillion coronavirus relief package days after he was appointed
President Donald Trump has removed the lead watchdog overseeing the $2 trillion coronavirus package, just days after the official, Glenn Fine, was appointed to the role.
The move came as Trump pursued similar action in recent weeks against independent inspectors general across the federal government.
Fine had been the acting Pentagon inspector general until Monday afternoon, when Trump abruptly removed him from his post.
“Yesterday, the President nominated Mr. Jason Abend for the position of DoD Inspector General,” said Dwrena Allen, a spokesperson for the Defense Department’s Inspector General, in a statement to CNBC.
“The same day, the President also designated Mr. Sean W. O’Donnell, who is the Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General (EPA IG), to serve as the Acting DoD IG in addition to his current duties at the EPA,” Allen said.
“Mr. Fine is no longer on the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee,” Allen said, and he now “reverts to his position as the Principal Deputy Inspector General.”
Fine had been chosen March 30 to lead the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee by his fellow inspectors general, who were tasked by the new law to select a chairman for their committee.
By removing Fine from his Pentagon job, Trump effectively eliminated Fine from the oversight committee, since only sitting IGs can serve on the committee. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee is one of several oversight panels in charge of ensuring that the $2 trillion relief and stimulus package is administered responsibly and transparently.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on Fine’s removal.
“This is a major problem that I’m very concerned about on a whole series of levels,” House Armed Services Committee chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
“I think we all understand President Trump, very clear and, frankly, on his first day in office: He wants people who are loyal to him. Who will praise him. First and foremost, that is what he wants in every position that he can control. He’s going to try to and expand what he can control. Theoretically, IGs are not simply subject to the whims of presidents,” Smith said.
“The President is not bringing talent to the challenge. He is bringing suck ups to challenge,” he added.
This Is Trump’s Fault
The president is failing, and Americans are paying for his failures.
I don’t take responsibility at all,” said President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden on March 13. Those words will probably end up as the epitaph of his presidency, the single sentence that sums it all up.
Trump now fancies himself a “wartime president.” How is his war going? By the end of March, the coronavirus had killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks. By the first weekend in April, the virus had killed more Americans than any single battle of the Civil War. By Easter, it may have killed more Americans than the Korean War. On the present trajectory, it will kill, by late April, more Americans than Vietnam. Having earlier promised that casualties could be held near zero, Trump now claims he will have done a “very good job” if the toll is held below 200,000 dead.
The United States is on trajectory to suffer more sickness, more dying, and more economic harm from this virus than any other comparably developed country.
Americans Are Paying the Price for Trump’s Failures - The Atlantic
With Bernie Sanders today ending his campaign for President of the USA, Joe Biden is the 99% likely Democratic nominee.
Joe Biden has promised that he will choose a female to be his Vice President, the first female VP in US history.
Potential names being tossed around ...more will be added.
AOC ... unlikely, too polarizing.
Katie Porter ... she would be great but not as great as ...
Stacey Abrams ... she would be a lock on the black, hispanic and minority vote!
... a quick scan of Fox News night time opinion hosts, they are still blaming the "deep state"... so out of touch!
Will President Trump toss Mike Pence for VP .... for Nikki Haley?
President Trump polls poorly with women, blacks and hispanics. These people combined make up the majority of the US population.
Stacey Abrams is a black, female politician who narrowly lost a recent Governor's election in Georgia but has risen to national prominence with her continued fight for voter rights.
I do not think many people care or know about Mondale/ Ferraro in the 1980s. It was a completely different time in American history when WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) had a much greater influence on society.
Forcing people to vote yesterday in Wisconsin during the height of the Corona Virus pandemic to exact political advantage for the Republican party was a huge political error that few voters will forget in November.
Biden, at first virtual event as presumptive nominee, says he's 'coming for' Kamala Harris
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There is the slight chance that Joe Biden could select Barack Obama to be his Vice President!
The 22nd Amendment states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
Of course, Obama has already served two full four-year terms as commander in chief. However, the way the 22nd Amendment is worded, the key words appear to be “elected to the office of the president.”
In 2015, Cornell Law School Professor Michael Dorf said he believes a past president who is ineligible to seek the Presidency through an election can still run on a ticket as a vice president. His comments came when some asked whether a Biden-Obama ticket could occur in the 2016 election.
“The drafters of this language [22nd Amendment] knew the difference between getting elected to an office and holding an office. They could have just said ‘no person may hold the office of president more than twice.’ But they didn’t.”
.... put that in your FoxNews broadcast and watch people's heads explode!
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