{"id":11516,"date":"2020-04-17T17:42:02","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T17:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11516"},"modified":"2020-04-17T17:42:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T17:42:03","slug":"whistleblower-protection-group-congress-must-reverse-igs-termination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11516","title":{"rendered":"Whistleblower protection group: Congress must reverse IG\u2019s termination"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/gr-69799-1-1.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11517\"\/><figcaption><strong><em>An advocacy group dedicated to protecting government whistleblowers says the firing of Inspector General Michael Atkinson by President Donald Trump without evidence that he acted improperly is a \u201ccrushing blow to public trust.\u201d  <\/em><\/strong>Photo: dni.gov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>by ROZ BROWN<\/strong><br>Texas News Service<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A whistleblower protection group is urging Congress to exercise its oversight responsibility to stop the termination of a central figure in President Donald Trump\u2019s impeachment.<br><br>On Friday, the president fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community. It was Atkinson who forwarded to Congress a whistleblower\u2019s complaint that initiated impeachment proceedings.<br><br>John Kostyack, executive director of the National Whistleblower Center, said retaliation against whistleblowers by the administration creates a hostile environment and damages the country\u2019s system of checks and balances.<br><br>\u201cIt\u2019s a very chilling message not just for those people but for all of us who believe in the rule of law and believe that oversight of the executive branch is pretty fundamental to make our democracy work,\u201d Kostyack said.<br><br>The whistleblower advocacy group has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whistleblowersblog.org\/2020\/04\/articles\/featured-story\/congress-must-use-its-powers-over-nominations-and-budget-to-stop-the-termination-of-inspector-general-michael-atkinson\/\">mounted a campaign<\/a>&nbsp;encouraging Congress to reverse the inspector general\u2019s firing. Kostyack said he believes Atkinson was following the rule of law when he forwarded the complaint revealing Trump had asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.<br><br>Several top Democrats have criticized the firing of Atkinson, and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley argued that Congress has been \u201ccrystal clear that written reasons must be given when an inspector general is removed for a lack of confidence.\u201d<br><br>Kostyack said it is in the institutional interests of Congress to say \u201cno\u201d when the president undercuts a system designed to help them perform their oversight function.<br><br>\u201cThey have the power of the purse. They have the power to block nominations. All of those steps are what Congress typically does when there\u2019s a test of wills between the executive and the legislative branch,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if there ever was a time for them to pull out those tools, this is it.\u201d<br><br>Trump was criticized last year for retweeting a post that revealed a name supposedly belonging to the whistleblower involved in the Ukraine investigation. The 1998 Whistleblower Protection Act was written to protect whistleblowers but does not prevent the president or members of Congress from identifying them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by ROZ BROWNTexas News Service AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A whistleblower protection group is urging Congress to exercise its oversight responsibility to stop the termination of a central figure in President Donald Trump\u2019s impeachment. On Friday, the president fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community. It was Atkinson who forwarded to Congress a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11518,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516\/revisions\/11518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}