Outgoing intel IG Michael Atkinson says Trump abruptly fired him for fulfilling his ‘legal obligations’

On Friday, April 3, President Donald Trump fired Michael Atkinson, inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community — and Atkinson is speaking out, asserting that Trump wrongly fired him for fulfilling his “legal obligations.”

In an official statement released on Sunday night, April 5, Atkinson asserted, “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, and from my commitment to continue to do so.”

In an April 3 memo, Trump stressed that he “no longer” had faith in Atkinson’s ability to perform his job. And Trump doubled down the following day, describing Atkinson as a “disgrace.”

“This is to advise that I am exercising my power as president to remove from office the inspector general of the intelligence community, effective 30 days from today,” Trump wrote in his April 3 memo. “As is the case with regard to other positions where I, as president, have the power of appointment, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general. That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general.”

During Trump’s three years in the White House, it has been obvious the president prefers to surround himself with loyalists. The long list of people were either fired by Trump or resigned out of extreme frustration ranges from former Defense Secretary James Mattis to former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to former White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly to former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Atkinson became intel inspector general in May 2018, and his relationship with Trump went from bad to worse in 2019 — when Atkinson told Congress about a complaint from a whistleblower in the federal government. That whistleblower believed that Trump acted inappropriately during a now-infamous July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who Trump asked to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

That conservation led to Trump being indicted on two articles of impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives, although he was later acquitted during a trial in the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate. And Trump clearly blames Atkinson, in part, for his impeachment.