On Saturday, President Trump issued a terse letter stating that he was firing Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IGIC) and the man who was the gateway for the Ukraine hoax. The Democrats, of course, were instantly up in arms claiming that Trump acted in an improper retaliatory manner. As always, Democrats are wrong and, in this case, unethical for propping up a corrupt Deep State actor. No wonder, then, that Trump reamed the Democrats during his Saturday press conference.

To refresh your recollection, on July 25, 2019, President Trump spoke to Ukraine's President Zelenksyy, a conversation at which myriad other people were present. A person who was not present nevertheless submitted a so-called “whistleblower” complaint to Atkinson.

At the time the so-called whistleblower acted, a valid complaint could not be based upon hearsay evidence. The reason behind this rule was that (as proved to be true in this case), the claim was false and interfered with government operations. Atkinson changed all that in order to help undermine Trump.

Putting aside the hearsay issue, the core of the Ukraine hoax was the July 25th conversation and whether it was appropriate or not. Atkinson, despite making a finding that the hearsay complaint stated a matter of “urgent concern,” never reviewed the documents memorializing the conversation. 

His failure to review the underlying facts was not because Trump’s office denied the request to see the document. He never asked. Instead, he stated that “I decided that access to records of the telephone call was not necessary to make my determination” because the whistleblower’s complaint “appears credible.” To him, time was of the essence and any effort to verify the whistleblower’s manifestly hearsay claims was time wasted.

There were other defalcations on Atkinson’s part, including being part of the FISA spying scandal, but this short post is not the place to detail them. Suffice to say that Atkinson is the worst kind of Deep State actor who abused his power in an effort to overthrow the Trump presidency.

Adam Schiff, who serves no other purpose than to be the Democrats’ attack dog against Trump, naturally led the charge against Atkinson’s firing:

Trump’s dead of night decision to fire ICIG Michael Atkinson is another blatant attempt to gut the independence of the Intelligence Community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing.

It puts our country and national security at even greater risk. pic.twitter.com/Pnm7chdIkl

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) April 4, 2020

President Trump, thankfully, stuck to his guns when reporters attacked him during the press briefing about his decision to fire Atkinson. A Los Angeles Times reporter asked Trump what was ostensibly a question about Atkinson’s firing but was, in fact, a long narrative attempting to exculpate Atkinson for his illegal and unethical conduct. Trump did not accept the premise of the question:

Instead, Trump stated bluntly, “I thought he [Atkinson] did a terrible job, absolutely terrible.” Trump then went on to detail the point made above, which is that Atkinson made no effort whatsoever to find out if there was any truth to the hearsay report that landed on his desk. Instead, he rushed over to Congress in the obvious hope that he could trigger precisely what happened: an impeachment.

Having wound himself up, Trump suggested that perhaps his nemesis, Adam Schiff, was the informer. After all, the informant’s identity has been buried and Trump was not shy about calling Schiff a “corrupt politician.”

Really angry, Trump told the assembled reporters, and the American people, “Dishonest Democrats impeached a President of the United States,” based upon Atkinson’s conduct. As far as Trump is concerned, “That man is a . . . total disgrace.”

When another reporter tried to drag the subject back to Atkinson’s firing, Trump made it clear that, as president, he's the boss and has the right to fire bad employees. “That's my decision. I have the absolute right. Even the fake news last night said he [Trump] has the absolute right to do it.”   

No wonder, then, that Trump ended the subject by saying “And frankly, somebody oughta sue his ass off.” Trump is correct. Firing is the least that ought to be done to someone like Atkinson, who uses a position of trust in the American government to try to stage a coup.