Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Tuesday defended the Pentagon inspector general fired by President Donald Trump.
Glenn Fine, who last month was selected by the head of a council of inspectors general to lead the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, was informed Monday that he was being replaced at the Defense Department by Sean W. O’Donnell, currently the inspector general at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Fine served for 11 years as inspector general at the DOJ.
“Mr. Fine is a public servant in the finest tradition of honest, competent governance,” Mattis told Yahoo News in an email. “In my years of extensive engagement with him as our Department of Defense’s acting Inspector General, he proved to be a leader whose personal and managerial integrity were always of the highest order.”
Trump last Friday also fired intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who had first told Congress of a whistleblower complaint stemming from a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy that led to Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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