President Donald Trump, with some partisan fanfare, fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson last month, saying that he had “no confidence” in him. Progressives howled that Atkinson should have been left to do what he was hired to do.
Atkinson said under oath in January 2018 during his confirmation hearing that he would protect intelligence-community whistleblowers, specifically saying that he would “encourage, operate, and enforce a program for authorized disclosures by whistleblowers within the IC that validates moral courage without compromising national security and without retaliation.” But that’s not what happened.