Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday brushed off questions about the sudden resignation of Stephen Akard and maintained that the acting inspector general stepped down from the post to return to his home state of Indiana.
Mr. Akard quietly announced his resignation to staffers Wednesday after serving in the position for three months, CNN reported.
He stepped into the role as the department’s inspector general following the firing of Steve Linick, a dismissal that congressional Democrats are investigating.
“He left to go back home. This happens,” Mr. Pompeo told reporters. “I don’t have anything more to add to that.”
But Democrats on Capitol Hill quickly expressed skepticism about the resignation and said in a statement that the move “adds to Congress’s questions about the independence of the IG’s office following the firing of former IG Steve Linick in an apparent act of retaliation by Secretary Pompeo.”
“Ambassador Akard’s abrupt resignation — after agreeing to our requests that he recuse himself from State IG investigations in which he was conflicted— must not further disrupt the Office of Inspector General’s important investigations,” said a statement by two key House committee chairman.
“Any effort by the Trump Administration to install another political loyalist would further undercut the ability of the Office to properly carry out its critical mission,” wrote Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Carolyn Maloney of New York, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
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