This is really very big. You need to understand that Glenn Fine is sort of an institution in the the DC world of Inspectors General. He was there at the beginning and has a great reputation in the Establishment. He was IG at DoJ when I was interviewed in connection with the Hanssen case--in which there was no real accountability. At this point I don't know what's behind this move. It's quite possible that it has to do with Durham's ongoing investigation and the involvement of DoD personnel in the Dem Impeachment Theater. I'm sure we'll be hearing more.
On the other hand, ponder this from Wikipedia:
On March 30, 2020, Fine was named chair of The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, to oversee the $2 trillion stimulus funds signed into law by President Donald Trump in response to the coronavirus outbreak. On April 7, 2020, Fine was removed from the position by President Trump.
Did Trump learn something about who Fine was cooperating with in that new Pandemic position? Here's how this move worked, as you'll see from the AP account below.
DoJ IG Michael Horowitz chairs the IG council--all the IGs in DC. With formation of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Horowitz moved quickly to appoint Fine to head The Pandemic committee on March 30, 2020. Trump moved just as quickly to nominate a replacement inspector general at the Pentagon and appointed an acting one to serve in Fine’s place. Then, today, Trump dismissed Fine from his newfangled Pandemic position. It was a sort of Wuhan Firedrill, and now Fine has no place to sit--or to hang his hat. He'll return to DoD, but will be second fiddle to the new acting guy.
There's no way in the world that Trump didn't have this in mind, and there's no way in the world he didn't consult closely with his WH counsel, Pat Cipollone, who led the impeachment defense team. And quite likely with AG Barr as well. I have to believe that this ties in to the ongoing house cleaning of the Intelligence Community.
President Donald Trump has removed the inspector general tapped to chair a special oversight board of the $2.2 trillion economic package intended to help businesses and individuals affected by the coronavirus, officials said Tuesday.
Glenn Fine, the acting Defense Department inspector general and a veteran watchdog, had been selected by peers last month for the position. Now it’s unclear who will oversee the rescue law.
The move threatens to upend the rigorous oversight that Democrats in Congress demanded for the huge sums of money being pumped into the American economy because of the virus.President Donald Trump has removed the inspector general tapped to chair a special oversight board of the $2.2 trillion economic package intended to help businesses and individuals affected by the coronavirus, officials said Tuesday.
Oversight. Right.
Trump’s removal of Fine follows his late-night firing on Friday of Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general who forwarded to Congress a whistleblower complaint that ultimately led to the president’s impeachment in the House.
On Monday, the president also publicly condemned the acting Health and Human Services watchdog over a survey of hospitals about the coronavirus response.
...
Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general and chair of a council of watchdogs, had moved quickly last month to appoint Fine the head of the new coronavirus oversight board.
But Fine will no longer be able to serve in the role [DoD IG] because Trump has nominated a replacement inspector general at the Pentagon and appointed an acting one to serve in Fine’s place, according to an email from an assistant Defense Department inspector general that was obtained by The Associated Press.
The demotion disqualifies Fine from serving on the oversight board, which was created by Congress to be the nexus of oversight for coronavirus funding. He will instead revert to the position of principal deputy inspector general.
Brace yourselves.
UPDATE: Commenter EZ makes the excellent point that one way to begin to understand the sidelining of Glenn Fine has to do with the years long affair of Adam Lovinger, the whistleblower at Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA, of course, was the conduit for paying Stefan Halper for his role in the Russia Hoax attempt to stop Trump from becoming President. Did Fine have a role in covering that up? Did he have a role in stonewalling attempts by Sen. Grassley and later John Durham in obtaining ONA records? That's one useful avenue of inquiry.
Two things jumped out at me:
ReplyDelete*Glenn Fine is sort of an institution in the the DC world of Inspectors General. He was there at the beginning and has a great reputation in the Establishment.
That would not endear him to President Trump. I wouldn’t think that being “an institution”, being a favorite of “The Establishment”, expecially at the DoJ, would be a good thing.
*Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general and chair of a council of watchdogs, had moved quickly last month to appoint Fine the head of the new coronavirus oversight board.
President Trump may be showing lack of confidence in Horowitz.
This sounds a little like what happened with Jessie Liu - nominated to a position at Treasury, she resigned from the DC district court. Then her Treasury nomination was withdrawn.
As we say in our household, “It will be revealed…"
All very much so. I can imagine the effect this news had on Horowitz.
DeleteI love the specter of John Durham hanging over all of this… I do hope he doesn’t disappoint...
Delete"threatens to upend the rigorous oversight".
ReplyDeleteHad they quoted a Dem operative to this effect, it would've at least had the veneer of non-partisan journalism.
From the Wikipedia article sounds sketchy...
ReplyDelete- involves in investigation of “politicized” firings by Bush of us attorneys.
- appointed by Clinton and Obama
If this decision causes Horowitz heartburn, on top of the firing of Atkinson, I'd expect Horowitz to at least publicly criticize the decision, if not resign in protest.
ReplyDeleteIf he doesn't, that's a clue that there is a sound foundation for Trump's action, one which Horowitz knows about.
I'd lastly observe that Trump has to know doing this in the absence of sound evidence to justify it would trigger the Dems into another Impeachment Frenzy, this time for "Double-Secret" Obstruction, or something similarly ludicrous. I thus assume that Trump has the goods, and will wait for the Dems and their MSM sycophants to start screaming about it, and then the evidence comes out to back up his decision. (I expect something similar for the firing of Atkinson as IC IG, as well.)
I can't help by speculate that this is all part and parcel with Durham/Barr's investigations -- perhaps they found evidence that Atkinson and Fine had been acting like partisans instead of independent objective IGs. Perhaps they suppressed Whistleblower complaints during the Obama Admin about the crap that Brennan was getting up to, or stuff over at DoD, such as the railroad job that was done on the guy who blew the whistle on the "Office of Technology Assessment" -- the slush fund that appears to have been used to fund "Russian Collusion" Impresario Steve Halper and disguise the source of the funding (CIA?)-- only to get framed for security violations.
The timing also fits what Barr has been saying about Durham's activities, and when we may see something concrete: "Mid-to-late Spring..."
If there is hard evidence implicating these IGs in conspiracy crimes, what better way to climb the food chain to the people orchestrating the Russia Collusion Hoax during and after the 2016 Election?
No question that there's a lot going on here. Hopefully we'll be hearing more about it soon. This clearly caught the usual folks by surprise. Which is definitely Barr's MO.
DeleteOne item I forgot to include in my laundry list of curious "coincidences": notice Atkinson's dismissal occurs only AFTER Grennell is installed by Trump as Acting DNI, to whom I assume the IC IG reports.
DeleteWhen all of the various events are viewed as part of a larger whole, I get the feeling we have been watching a Grandmaster maneuvering his chess pieces into a position from which a furious Gary Fisher-style offensive can be unleashed on an unsuspecting opponent.
The sequencing is all perfect; too perfect for it to be random chance, is my hunch.
Schiff has written a letter to Grenell demanding all sorts of explanations. Apparently the purge has been quite far reaching--more so that the public is aware of. The thing is, now with Trump on the offensive the Dem House will find they're trying to play whack-a-mole. Trump will stonewall and delay every time they try to stop him, meanwhile opening up new fronts.
DeleteI should have written "Office of Net Assessment," details of the Lovinger case, and how it involves former DoD IG Fine:
Delete,quote>One of the driving forces behind the new focus is the Trump camp’s frustration over a long-standing impasse into a whistleblower reprisal case against defense analyst Adam Lovinger, an ousted member of Trump’s National Security Council who has become a cause celebre among some of Trump’s closest allies and advisers. Lovinger, who was removed from Trump’s NSC early in the administration, has spent nearly three years on unpaid administrative leave and the last two waiting for acting Defense Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, who was appointed by Obama, to wrap up the case and issue his final report.
Lovinger had formally complained about lucrative contracts at the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. He was later suspended from his role at the NSC and stripped of his security clearance for allegations that he brought classified material onto an airplane, a charge his lawyer says was never substantiated. The new scrutiny of Obama-appointed IGs also comes amid developments in another controversial case involving threats to a different Trump appointee’s security clearance.
The source article:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/10/igs_in_trumps_crosshairs_watching_the_watchdogs__142617.html
is a month old, and indicates that the purge of IGs has been in the works for quite some time.
Reports tonight are suggest as many as 7 IG's are being replaced, since Trump mentioned at the press briefing earlier today he had nominated "7 names" for IGs.
So, this could be a wider, but less intriguing process that is playing out with replacement of IGs, rather than a more focused one on the IC and DoD IGs alone.
DNI Grenell: Schiff ‘Politicizing Intel Community’ by Leaking Staffing Changes Concerns Letter to Press
DeleteU.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell on Tuesday indicated that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) engaged in political grandstanding by leaking a copy of a letter of concern about staffing changes within the intelligence community to the press before sending it to him.
Shiff addressed the April 7 correspondence to Grenell, but the press got a copy of it first.
“His letter was sent to the press before it was sent to me,” Grenell asserted via Twitter on Tuesday. “These press leaks politicizing the intelligence community must stop.” (Snip)
In the April 7 letter addressed to Grenell, Schiff raised concerns about the intelligence community chief’s ongoing efforts to overhaul the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). ODNI is in charge of the U.S. intelligence community.
Specifically, Schiff complained that Grenell is reorganizing the ODNI without receiving congressional authorization.
The House chairman demanded that Grenell produce information to his panel by April 16 about personnel changes, the firing of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson, and alleged interference in the production of intelligence on election security.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/07/dni-grenell-schiff-politicizing-intel-community-by-leaking-staffing-changes-concerns-letter-to-press/
Ah, EZ, great catch. Lovinger, ONA, Halper--DoD. It all hangs together, and they've probably been stonewalling Durham.
DeleteMore:
DeleteFurther research reveals Lovinger was not only "set up" for administrative "Mishandling classified material" and "leaking" charges in response to him raising questions about what was going on at ONA, which led to his loss of clearance, and thus his job, but he also filed a complaint with DOD IG Fine last August in regard to the discovery that DoD withheld exculpatory evidence that could have assisted him in his defense in the administrative trial.
It's not like Horowitz having to research the entirety of the Carter Page FISA warrant applications; all Fine's office needed to do is determine if the NCIS's investigation and determination that there was no evidence of mishandling or leaking of "sensitive materials" by Lovinger was shared with DoD (it was,) and what reasons DoD gave for not sharing it with Lovinger and his attorney before his administrative trial.
That doesn't take anything close to a year to investigate, yet the DOD IG (Fine) has been sitting on it for 8 months with no report.
Fine's history of sitting on inconvenient information or just not investigating at all goes way back to his DOJ IG days.
DeleteThe negative reactions of Schiff and Schumer is encouraging.
ReplyDeleteExactly. If you needed to be convinced, that's it.
Delete"...Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blasted the president for sidelining Fine from his post."
ReplyDeleteTells you all you need to know about Fine.
The coup continues. And yet he ages not- how much wealth had Trump lost? Why did he take this job?
ReplyDeleteNearly every day, I gain more hope and respect for him as a person.
Absolutely.
DeleteMore on Fine - Andrew Mccarthy beautifully explains the politics:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/its-the-presidents-prerogative-to-name-a-covid-19-spending-watchdog-he-trusts/
Of course.
Delete