1. Steven Alan Linick is an American attorney and State Department official who served as Inspector General of the Department of State and led the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of State.
15 Facts About Steve Linick
1. 2.
Steve Linick earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Philosophy, and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
3.
Steve Linick served as an Assistant United States Attorney in California from 1994 to 1999 and Virginia from 1999 to 2006.
4.
Steve Linick served as Executive Director of the Department of Justice's National Procurement Fraud Task Force and Deputy Chief of its Fraud Section in the Criminal Division from 2006 to 2010.
5.
In 2010, Steve Linick was appointed Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
6.
In March 2011, Steve Linick published a report criticizing FHFA for authorizing tax-payer funded salaries of $35.4 million to the top six executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
7.
In October 2011, Steve Linick published the results of an investigation into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which found that the regulator for the two companies had failed to create adequate risk controls to help prevent foreclosure abuses.
8.
In 2013, Steve Linick left FHFA to begin his appointment as Inspector General of the Department of State on September 30,2013.
9.
Early in his tenure, Steve Linick conducted inspections which turned up numerous security deficiencies in five newly-opened overseas State Department facilities, all of which were in locations which were considered to have a high risk of terrorism or sociopolitical unrest; the report became public in 2014.
10.
The documents, which at a later date Rudy Giuliani said originated with him, were passed to Steve Linick, who sent them to the FBI.
11.
Steve Linick's action put him at odds with State Department leadership, which had decided not to cooperate with Congressional impeachment investigations.
12.
On May 15,2020, Steve Linick was informed by Brian Bulatao and Stephen Biegun, two of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's high-ranking aides, that President Trump had decided to remove him from his post; Steve Linick was then immediately placed on administrative leave.
13.
Steve Linick's dismissal was officially announced in a letter sent by Trump to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late that same night.
14.
Congress held hearings to determine if Steve Linick's firing was in retaliation for conducting investigations related to Secretary Pompeo and other officials.
15.
Steve Linick had been probing Trump's controversial bypassing of Congress to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.