On Wednesday, CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem called in to Boston Public Radio to discuss Trump’s decision to fire two inspectors general in the course of four days.
Last Friday, it was intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, who alerted lawmakers to the whistleblower complaint that ultimately led to Trump's impeachment.
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And on Monday it was Glenn Fine, inspector general at the Pentagon, who was also in charge of leading the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.
Kayyem said she believes Trump is looking to protect himself from potential investigations in 2021.
"My personal feeling is he’s positioning for losing,” she said. "That he wants to get his people into the investigative body because he knows the first thing that’s going to happen is everyone’s gonna realize how much corruption the Trump family did during [his presidency].”
Inspectors general are typically career-appointees, and exist to oversee and regulate the conduct of federal agencies.
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"Yes, it’s upsetting,” Kayyem said of the firings, “[but] In the scheme of things Donald Trump has done... beside dropping the ball on a global pandemic, I’d put this at a three.”
“The Republican Senate won’t do anything about it, they will wring their hands,” she said. "There will be corruption, as there has been, and now [it’s] eyes on the prize for me personally — which is November.”
Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
