WASHINGTON – Leading congressional Democrats expressed rage over President Donald Trump’s decision Friday night to fire the Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who raised concerns about the president’s conduct that led to Trump’s impeachment, describing it as a “chilling” move against the truth.

“President Trump is using a global pandemic as cover to exact political revenge against the Intelligence Community Inspector General who revealed his misconduct. Firing IG Atkinson is corruption, and it threatens our national security during a global crisis,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted Saturday morning.

President Trump is using a global pandemic as cover to exact political revenge against the Intelligence Community Inspector General who revealed his misconduct. Firing IG Atkinson is corruption, and it threatens our national security during a global crisis. https://t.co/uOhSkUJCBL — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) April 4, 2020

“This latest act of reprisal against the Intelligence Community threatens to have a chilling effect against all willing to speak truth to power,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. “The President must immediately cease his attacks on those who sacrifice to keep America safe, particularly during this time of national emergency.”


Since the news of Atkinson’s firing broke, there’s been no reaction from top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and House Intelligence Committee ranking Republican Devin Nunes of California.

The president’s ouster of Atkinson comes as the nation is in the grip of a global pandemic that has upended Americans’ every day lives and replaced normalcy with fear and uncertainty. The White House’s public posture is laser-focused on its response to the coronavirus crisis, but Atkinson’s firing is one of many examples of how the administration continues full speed ahead on its agenda by rolling back auto emissions standards, closing down the border to immigrants and nominating a divisive judicial candidate.

Some Democrats accused Trump of taking this divisive action while the country is otherwise distracted by the public health crisis.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said, “At a time when our country is dealing with a national emergency and needs people in the intelligence community to speak truth to power, the president’s dead of night decision puts our country and national security at even greater risk.”


Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a vocal Trump advocate during the impeachment probe, mocked Schiff for being upset about Atkinson’s firing, calling him Schiff’s “key impeachment enabler.” Republicans slammed Schiff, who led the House’s impeachment investigation, for refusing to make public a transcript of a closed door interview with Atkinson.

It was Atkinson who alerted Congress in September to an “urgent” and “credible” whistleblower complaint he’d received against Trump that accused the president of asking the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a phone call to open an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.