Romney calls Trump’s IG firings ‘a threat to accountable democracy’

Washington, DC CNN — Republican Sen. Mitt Romney on Saturday denounced President Donald Trump’s firings of internal government oversight officials, calling it a “threat to accountable democracy.” Romney’s comments came in response to Trump’s Friday firing of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick – the latest in a series of dismissals of independent government watchdogs that have come in the wake of the President’s acquittal on two articles of impeachment earlier this year. Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, called it “another Friday night massacre” on CNN Saturday night after announcing earlier in the day that he and his House counterpart, Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, had launched a probe into the firing. Though Republicans have been mostly quiet about the firing, earlier in the day, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, a longtime proponent of inspectors general, expressed some concern about Trump’s rationale for firing Linick. Late Saturday night, Maine Sen. Susan Collins also responded to the firing in a series of tweets that suggested Linick’s dismissal didn’t meet the standard required by law.