Questions surround President Trump's firing of the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community who alerted Congress to a whistleblower complaint over the president's phone call with the president of Ukraine -- that ultimately led to the president's impeachment; David Spunt reports.

President Trump informed Congress late Friday that he intends to fire Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson after a mandatory 30-day period but also said he was placing Atkinson on immediate administrative leave. "Inspectors general are traditionally removed for 'cause' — usually involving misconduct," The Washington Post notes. "In Atkinson's case, there was no apparent misconduct. Rather, Trump said in a letter to Congress on Friday night that it was 'no longer the case' that Atkinson had his 'fullest confidence.'"In a press conference Saturday, Trump strongly suggested he was sacking Atkinson for informing Congress about the Ukraine whistleblower complaint that, once largely confirmed, led to Trump's impeachment. "I thought he did a terrible job, absolutely terrible," Trump told reporters. "He took this terrible, inaccurate whistleblower report and he brought it to Congress." Atkinson released an unusual statement Sunday night defending his handling of the Ukraine matter and saying "it is hard not to think that the president's loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial inspector general."Democrats and some Senate Republicans criticized the late-night sacking, and Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general and chairman of a council of federal inspectors general, said Atkinson was known by his peers for "integrity, professionalism, and commitment to the rule of law and independent oversight," including "his actions in handling the Ukraine whistleblower complaint, which the then-acting director of national intelligence stated in congressional testimony was done 'by the book' and consistent with the law."Trump also announced Friday night he intends to nominate a White House lawyer, Brian Miller, as special inspector general for a $500 billion coronavirus relief fund and replace Glenn Fine, the well-regarded acting inspector general of the Defense Department, with Jason Abend, a senior policy adviser at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Horowitz had tapped Fine as inspector general of the entire $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue package.More stories from theweek.com 5 funny cartoons about social distancing Health experts say official U.S. coronavirus death toll is understated 5 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's TV ratings boast

The ousted inspector general of the intelligence community says he is “disappointed and saddened” that President Donald Trump fired him, but he also encouraged other inspectors general to continue to speak out when they are aware of wrongdoing. Trump notified Congress late Friday evening that he intended to fire Michael Atkinson, a pivotal figure in his impeachment last year, because he had lost confidence in him. On Saturday, Trump made it clear that the move had been retaliatory, telling reporters that Atkinson was a “disgrace” and had done “a terrible job” because he had provided an anonymous whistleblower complaint to Congress — a move that was required by law.

As the global pandemic and a staggering economic crisis swells, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the controversial celebrity doctor, has been advising senior Trump administration officials on coronavirus-related matters. Oz has even caught President Donald Trump’s attention with the celebrity doctor’s numerous appearances on the president’s favorite TV channel, The Daily Beast has learned.In the past couple of weeks, Trump began hearing more and more about and watching Oz, now a Fox News regular, discuss hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that Trump aggressively touted as a coronavirus treatment, much to the dismay of various medical experts and scientists. Over these two weeks, the president had specifically made a point of telling aides that he was interested in what Oz had to say and that he wished to speak to the much-maligned television personality, according to two people familiar with the president’s requests. It is unclear if Trump has spoken on the phone with Oz lately, as he told aides that he wished to do so.But Trump has told officials that it would be “a good idea” if they talked to Oz, one of the sources added. Top administration officials, including Trump’s administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, have privately spoken to Oz in recent days to discuss the virus and his views on the possible treatment, three sources said. The New York Times first reported that Oz had been in touch with the Trump team.Oz seemed to confirm his level of access to the administration during an interview with Fox & Friends hosts last week, saying an “astute question” that co-host Brian Kilmeade asked the other day “on this show” actually inspired him to contact Verma about using the Medicare and Medicaid national data to compare coronavirus infection rates in patients already prescribed hydroxychloroquine versus patients who are not taking the drug. “It's a rough-and-tumble study, but she’s agreeing to do it, or look into it, anyway,” Oz claimed.This is not necessarily a welcome development for some of the public health professionals on the president’s coronavirus task force. “It is very annoying to some of us that Dr. Oz is trying to poke his head in and get more involved in this,” said a senior administration official who works closely with the task force. “This shouldn’t be a celebrity showcase...Are we going to deputize Dr. Drew and Dr. Spaceman next?” (Dr. Leo Spaceman is a fictional lunatic doctor who was portrayed by actor Chris Parnell on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock.)When asked about the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus—Oz’s current cause—on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the co-hosts that “although there is some suggestion with [a recent hydroxychloroquine] study that was just mentioned by Dr. Oz… I think we’ve got to be careful that we don’t make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug.”At his coronavirus news conferences on Saturday and Sunday, Trump again hyped up the drug he has repeatedly labeled a “game changer.”“I hope they use hydroxychloroquine,” he said. “What do you have to lose?” Trump added that 29 million doses of the drug were now available for doctors to use on COVID-19 patients. “I may take it,” Trump, who has twice tested negative for the coronavirus, said. “I have to ask my doctors about that.” But Trump and Oz’s unproven claims about hydroxychloroquine have come at a cost to those that need it most—to patients with autoimmune diseases who rely on the drug. Healthy people started hoarding it after Trump’s promotion. In some cases, doctors were found to be writing prescriptions for family and friends who didn’t need it, leaving actual sufferers of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis down to only a handful of pills. One Arizona man died after ingesting the fish-tank cleanser chloroquine phosphate, thinking it could help fight off the coronavirus. Oz has appeared on Fox News 21 times since March 24, including a virtual town-hall event where he promoted hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment and got to speak directly to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Oz is still in the midst of a media blitz that has focused on swinging by some of the shows that Trump just so happens to watch most obsessively.Oz has made eight appearances on the president's favorite breakfast show, Fox & Friends, a program that has had concrete, recurring influence on his political and policy moves. The doc has been on Sean Hannity’s program seven times, twice on Lou Dobbs’ show, once on Morning with Maria, and once on Shannon Bream. Both Dobbs and Hannity serve as prominent informal advisers to Trump.“The U.S. government has to procure enough of these pills,” Oz told Fox & Friends on March 23. “My biggest challenge was getting pills, and we finally thankfully got enough to do a trial and a couple of hundred people, but America is going to want pills.”Oz has not been seen in almost a month on NBC, where he had been part of the Today show’s so-called “Coronavirus Crisis Team.” NBC News did not respond to a request for comment on why Oz has been missing from its coverage.Oz did not return repeated calls for comment on this story. A rep for The Dr. Oz Show didn’t respond to a comment request, either.Dr. Oz: Coronavirus ‘Worry and Panic’ Will Be ‘Worse’ Than Disease ItselfWhy Is Alleged Quack Dr. Oz the Face of NBC’s ‘Coronavirus Crisis Team’?Oz has been labeled a “quack” from others in his profession and has repeatedly come under fire for his dubious medical advice pushing phony weight-loss remedies and saying that Umckaloabo Root Extract is a cure for the common cold. He has also had an obsession with genetically modified foods and the false theory that they are linked to cancer.Three Mayo Clinic scientists—Dr. Jon C. Tilburt, M.D., and Ph.D.s Megan Allyse and Frederic W. Hafferty—slammed Oz in a February 2017 article in the AMA Journal of Ethics. “Should a physician be allowed to say anything—however inaccurate and potentially harmful—so long as that individual commands market share?” they wrote. “In a professional sector whose history and growth is marked by the sustained and rightful denouncement of quacks and quackery… an inability to define and fence the epistemic boundaries of scientific medicine from apparent quackery on such a visible scale becomes something akin to a full-scale identity crisis for medicine…”“He’s been dishonest and he has been dispensing misinformation to millions now for years,” physician and scientific researcher Henry I. Miller told The Daily Beast last month.  “I wouldn’t trust any of his observations and don’t see how he would have responsible and valid views on coronavirus.”But the controversy-courting TV doctor’s ascension in Trumpworld—at a time of a deadly, historic pandemic—was years in the making. Long before Trump was elected, the future president, then a reality TV star and real-estate businessman, and his family were personally acquainted with Oz via the Manhattan and celebrity social circuits. They exchanged small talk at parties and formal events over the years, two people who know both men recalled.Toward the end of his 2016 face-off against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, candidate Trump went on Oz’s show to discuss his health, saying it was a “great honor” to be on the long-running daytime talk show. When asked “how do you stay healthy on a campaign trail” by Oz, Trump replied, “I’m up there [at rallies] using a lot of motion, I guess in its own way, it’s a pretty healthy act. And I really enjoy doing it. A lot of times, these rooms are very hot, like saunas.”Trump then added, “and I guess that’s a form of exercise, and, you know,” before trailing off. During this explicitly softball interview, the Republican nominee very gently moved his arms around to demonstrate the kind of “motion” that he deemed “exercise.”By the middle of the Trump presidency, Oz’s proximity to the 45th president of the United States started paying off. In May 2018, Trump announced his plan to appoint Oz to the president’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. Two years on, Oz hit a much bigger personal milestone in the Trump era: managing to worm his way into playing the role of informal adviser to the administration grappling with a near-unprecedented disaster. But the TV doctor isn’t the only person in Trumpworld pitching hydroxychloroquine, the supposed miracle drug, during the pandemic. A business group started by Trump megadonor and Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus has purchased Facebook ads to push for the adoption of the anti-malaria medication.Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer and a central figure in the Ukraine saga that triggered Trump’s impeachment, told The Daily Beast that he’d been talking about the coronavirus with Trump over the phone since last month. Giuliani declined to go into specific detail about what precisely the two men discussed. But online, the former New York City mayor has emerged as one of Trumpworld’s most aggressive advocates for hydroxychloroquine as a weapon against the coronavirus.It got to the point late last month where Twitter began censoring the Trump attorney, removing one of his tweets promoting the treatment that was deemed egregious enough to be a violation of the social network’s rules.—with additional reporting by Justin BaragonaDr. Anthony Fauci: I Don’t Want to ‘Embarrass’ TrumpRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

WASHINGTON -- Remember the impeachment? President Donald Trump does. Even in the middle of a pandemic, he made clear on Saturday that he remained fixated on purging the government of those he believes betrayed him during the inquiry that led to his Senate trial.The president's under-cover-of-darkness decision late the night before to fire Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community's inspector general who insisted last year on forwarding a whistleblower complaint to Congress, swept away one more official deemed insufficiently loyal as part of a larger purge that has already rid the administration of many key figures in the impeachment drama.Trump made no effort at a news briefing Saturday to pretend that the dismissal was anything other than retribution for Atkinson's action under a law requiring such complaints be disclosed to lawmakers. "I thought he did a terrible job, absolutely terrible," Trump said. "He took a fake report and he brought it to Congress." Capping a long, angry denunciation of the impeachment, he added, "The man is a disgrace to IGs. He's a total disgrace."Trump's hunt for informers and turncoats proceeds even while most Americans are focused on the coronavirus outbreak that has killed thousands and shut down most of the country. The president's determination to wipe out perceived treachery underscores his intense distrust of the government that he oversees at a time when he is relying on career public health and emergency management officials to help guide him through one of the most dangerous periods in modern American history."It was a Friday Night Massacre, a purely vindictive decision with no apparent purpose other than punishing the inspector general for doing his job," said Chris Whipple, author of "The Spymasters," a coming history of CIA directors to be published in September. "What's next? Unmasking the whistleblower and hauling him into the dock? The signal here to the intelligence community is, do not dare tell the president what he doesn't want to hear."At his briefing Saturday, Trump likewise endorsed the firing of Capt. Brett E. Crozier of the Navy, who was removed from command of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt after sending his superiors a letter pleading for help for his virus-stricken crew. "He shouldn't be talking that way in a letter," the president said. "I thought it was terrible what he did."While appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, inspectors general are government watchdogs traditionally granted a great deal of independence so that they can ferret out waste, fraud and other misconduct in government agencies without fear of reprisal.But Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he has little regard for the positions, which were created by Congress after Watergate to increase government accountability, and expects executive branch officials to serve his interests.His administration has quarreled with various inspectors general and more than a dozen such positions are currently unfilled. When Trump signed the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package, he issued a signing statement saying he will not allow a special inspector general created by the law to monitor spending to send reports to Congress without his supervision.On Friday night, even as he fired Atkinson, Trump installed Brian D. Miller, a White House aide, as the special inspector general for the relief spending, raising questions about how beholden he will be to the president in scrutinizing the execution of the largest such stimulus program in history.Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Miller's selection missed the point of what such an oversight official's mission should be. "To nominate a member of the president's own staff is exactly the wrong type of person to choose for this position," Schumer said Saturday.Schumer's office released a letter that Atkinson sent the senator on March 18 in response to concerns about whistleblowers. "As you know, the past six months have been a searing time for whistleblowers and for those who work to protect them from reprisal or threat of reprisal for reporting wrongdoing," Atkinson wrote. Promised protections are meaningless if whistleblowers are "vilified, threatened, publicly ridiculed or -- perhaps even worse -- utterly abandoned by fair weather whistleblower champions."Trump's dismissal of Atkinson was the latest instance of the president continuing to pursue his personal and policy agenda while the nation has been consumed by the pandemic. He rolled back car pollution rules and used the virus to justify tougher controls at the border with Mexico and a new rule undercutting federal unions.Trump acted against the inspector general two months after the Senate voted almost entirely along party lines to acquit him on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress stemming from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to incriminate Democrats while withholding desperately needed security aid. But even as he has been managing the pandemic response, impeachment remains on Trump's mind.In a Fox News interview this past week, Trump blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for impeaching him rather than facing the looming coronavirus threat."All she did was focus on impeachment," he said. "She didn't focus on anything having to do with pandemics, she didn't focus on -- she focused on impeachment and she lost. And she looked like a fool."That is a theme other Republicans have picked up, arguing that the focus on ousting Trump over what they called bogus charges distracted the country. "It diverted the attention of the government, because everything every day was all about impeachment," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, told radio host Hugh Hewitt.Trump, however, denied that it distracted him. "Did it divert my attention?" he replied to a reporter. "I think I'm getting A-pluses for the way I handled myself during a phony impeachment. OK? It was a hoax.""I don't think I would have done any better had I not been impeached. OK?" he added. "And I think that's a great tribute to something; maybe it's a tribute to me. But I don't think I would have acted any differently or I don't think I would have acted any faster." McConnell later told The Washington Post that he meant Congress was distracted, not the government.The Senate trial ended Feb. 5, just days after Trump ordered the country closed to most travelers from China, where the virus outbreak began. During the trial and long after it was over, Trump was playing down the seriousness of the coronavirus, likening it to the ordinary flu and predicting that "like a miracle it will disappear." It was not until March 11, five weeks after the trial, that he first addressed the nation from the Oval Office, and not until March 13 that he declared a national emergency.After the Senate trial ended, Trump began removing officials seen as enemies. The target list was long and varied, including Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a national security aide who testified before the House under subpoena, and his twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who had nothing to do with impeachment other than being family. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, another witness, was removed.Ambassador William Taylor, the acting chief diplomat in Ukraine who also testified, was brought home early. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense, was ousted. Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, was pushed out early. Elaine McCusker, a Defense Department official who questioned the aid freeze had her nomination to be Pentagon comptroller withdrawn. Jessie Liu, who prosecuted Trump's friend, Roger Stone, had her nomination to be undersecretary of the Treasury withdrawn.Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, who admitted at a news briefing that the security aid was held up in part to leverage Ukraine to investigate Democrats (and then tried to take his statement back), was fired March 6 even as the pandemic was beginning to spread more widely.As the intelligence community's inspector general, Atkinson received the whistleblower complaint filed last August by a CIA official about Trump's dealings with Ukraine. Atkinson concluded that he was required by law to disclose the complaint to Congress, but the Trump administration initially refused until pressured by lawmakers.Trump said Saturday that Atkinson should not have forwarded the whistleblower's complaint because it was fake, but in fact the bulk of the information included in it was verified by witness testimony and other evidence collected by House investigators."Why was the whistleblower allowed to do this?" Trump asked. "Why was he allowed to be -- you call him fraudulent, or incorrect transcript. So we offered this IG -- I don't know him, I don't think I ever met him. He never even came in to see me. How can you do that without seeing the person? Never came in to see me. Never requested to see me. He took this terrible inaccurate whistleblower report -- right? -- and he brought it to Congress."Atkinson's dismissal Friday night, a time often used by a White House to bury news it prefers not to gain widespread attention, was disclosed in a letter to Congress but not announced by the White House press office. While it had been anticipated, it still sent waves of concern among lawmakers and intelligence veterans."It's awful. He did everything right," Gen. Michael Hayden, a CIA director under President George W. Bush, said of Atkinson. Trump, he added, was flouting the purpose of an inspector general. "He's just doing it because he can do it."Democrats issued statements of protest Saturday. "Weakening our national security institutions is bad enough during a time of global calm," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "During the current instability we're faced with, it's particularly dangerous."Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Trump should provide more justification for firing an inspector general. "They help drain the swamp, so any removal demands an explanation," Grassley said in a statement. "Congress has been crystal clear that written reasons must be given when IGs are removed for a lack of confidence. More details are needed from the administration."Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was more tempered, noting that an inspector serves at the pleasure of the president. "However," he added, "in order to be effective, the IG must be allowed to conduct his or her work independent of internal or external pressure. It is my hope the next nominee for the role of ICIG will uphold the same important standards laid out by Congress when we created this role."As it happened, one inspector general who has earned Trump's favor for his report criticizing the FBI's handling of the Russia investigation stood by Atkinson. Michael E. Horowitz, the inspector general at the Justice Department and head of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, said Atkinson was known "for his integrity, professionalism, and commitment to the rule of law and independent oversight.""That," Horowitz added, "includes his actions in handling the Ukraine whistleblower complaint."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Chaos in response to Covid-19 is no surprise. Nor is the unscrupulous operators’ pursuit of profit and political advantage * Coronavirus – latest US updates * Coronavirus – latest global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageThe utter chaos in America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic – shortages of equipment to protect hospital workers, dwindling supplies of ventilators and critical medications, jaw-dropping confusion over how $2.2tn of aid in the recent coronavirus law will be distributed – was perhaps predictable in a nation that prides itself on competitive individualism and hates centralized power.But it is also tailor-made for Donald Trump, who has spent a lifetime exploiting chaos for personal gain and blaming others for losses.“I don’t take responsibility” for the slow rate of coronavirus testing in the US, he said.On Friday, when asked if he could assure New Yorkers there would be enough ventilators next week when virus victims are expected to overwhelm city hospitals, he replied: “No. They should have had more ventilators.”Trump has told governors to find life-saving equipment on their own. He refuses to create a central bargaining agent, arguing the federal government is “not a shipping clerk”. This has left states and cities bidding against each other, driving up prices.Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor, described how ventilators went from $25,000 to $45,000 “because we bid $25,000. California says, ‘I’ll give you $30,000’ and Illinois says, ‘I’ll give you $35,000’ and Florida says ‘I’ll give you $40,000. And then, Fema [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] gets involved and Fema starts bidding!“And now Fema is bidding on top of the 50! So Fema is driving up the price. What sense does this make? We’re literally bidding up the prices ourselves.”New York state is paying 20 cents for gloves that normally cost less than five cents, $7.50 for masks that normally go for 50 cents, $2,795 for infusion pumps that normally cost half that, $248,841 for a portable X-ray machine that typically sells for $30,000 to $80,000.Who’s pocketing all this? An array of producers, importers, wholesalers and speculators. State laws against price gouging usually don’t apply to government purchases.Some of it may be finding its way into this fall’s election campaigns. The veteran Republican fundraiser Mike Gula and Republican political operative John Thomas just started a company selling coronavirus testing kits, personal protective equipment and other “hard to find medical supplies to beat the outbreak”. They call themselves “the largest global network of Covid-19 medical suppliers”.Asked how he’d found such equipment, Gula explained: “I have relationships with a lot of people.”Thomas added: “In politics – especially if you’re at a high enough level – you are one phone call away from anybody in the world.”Meanwhile, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner – who’s one phone call away from anyone – is running a “shadow” coronavirus task force that has been enlisting the private sector and overseeing the Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies, all out of public view.“It’s supposed to be our stockpile – it’s not supposed to be state stockpiles,” he said cryptically on Thursday.Oh, and let’s not forget the giant coronavirus bill Trump signed into law on 27 March, which created a $500bn fund that Trump and his treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, will distribute to the private sector. Most of it will backstop $4.5tn of subsidized loans (ie, bailout money) coming from the Fed, also distributed by the Treasury.In a signing statement, Trump said he wouldn’t agree to provisions in the bill for congressional oversight – meaning the wheeling-and-dealing will be in secret. When the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said she’d form a special select committee to watch how the money is spent, Trump accused her of “conducting partisan investigations in the middle of a pandemic”, adding: “Here we go again … It’s witch hunt after witch hunt.”Is there any doubt Trump will try to use this money, as well as his son-in-law’s secretive dealings, to improve his odds of re-election?Trump was impeached a mere three and a half months ago on charges of abuse of power and obstructing investigations. Eight months ago, he phoned the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, seeking dirt on Joe Biden and threatening to hold up military aid to get it.In June 2016, his son Donald Jr and Jared Kushner met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, after a Russian intermediary contacted Trump Jr with a promise to provide material that would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton and be “very useful to your father”, adding it was part of the Russian government’s “support” for Trump.Donald Trump calls allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election a “hoax”. He called his impeachment a “hoax”. He initially called the coronavirus a “hoax”.But the real hoax is Trump’s commitment to America. In reality he will do anything – anything – to hold on to power. In his mind, the coronavirus crisis is just another opportunity. * Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US

The top U.S. federal watchdog vowed on Saturday to continue with "aggressive" independent oversight of government agencies, after President Donald Trump fired Michael Atkinson - the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community - late Friday night.

Atkinson was involved in triggering an impeachment probe of the president last year, after telling Congress that a whistleblower's report on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine was credible.

Trump on Friday said Atkinson no longer had his "fullest confidence” and said he would be removed from his position in 30 days.

In a statement on Saturday - Department of Justice watchdog, Michael Horowitz, said that Atkinson was known for his quote: "integrity, professionalism, and commitment to the rule of law and independent oversight.

Atkinson had expressed concern that Trump potentially exposed himself to “serious national security and counter-intelligence risks” when he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son during a July 25 phone call.

Atkinson’s firing comes as U.S. inspectors general were recently tasked with broad surveillance of the government's response to the coronavirus… and to provide the public information about where the taxpayer dollars and other resources go.

President Trump on Friday fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who informed Congress about the whistleblower complaint regarding Trump's communications with Ukraine that eventually led to his impeachment. The president said he "no longer" has the "fullest confidence" in Atkinson.Democrats were not happy with the decision, especially considering it came as the novel coronavirus pandemic intensifies across the United States. "In the midst of a national emergency, it is unconscionable that the president is once again attempting to undermine the integrity of the intelligence community by firing yet another intelligence official simply for doing his job," said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.The Trump administration has already removed numerous officials from their posts involved with Trump's impeachment proceedings, including Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a former National Security Council official, and former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. Others, like former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, resigned.Atkinson won't be immediately removed — the statute for the intelligence community inspector general requires both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees be informed of a dismissal with 30 days notice, so there won't be an official change until next month. Read more at The Guardian and CNN.More stories from theweek.com The noble lie about masks and coronavirus should never have been told Social distancing is going to get darker The best of quarantine shopping — simplified

Intelligence chief Michael Atkinson first alerted Congress to a whistleblower complaint.

Donald Trump has fired the US inspector general for the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, the man who first handled the complaint made by an anonymous CIA whistleblower that became the basis for his impeachment.The president wrote to the House and Senate intelligence committees late on Friday informing them of his decision, saying it was “vital” he had confidence in the independent government watchdog and and “that is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general”.