WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The top two officials in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were improperly appointed to the posts under federal law by the Trump administration, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog said Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Government Accountability Office says acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, are ineligible to run the agency under a federal law known as the Vacancy Reform Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
GAO said it has asked the DHS inspector general to review the situation and determine if the violation affects decisions they have taken at a time when the Department of Homeland Security has been at the forefront of key administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both men should resign, according to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security and Rep. Carolyn Maloney of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“GAO’s damning opinion paints a disturbing picture of the Trump Administration playing fast and loose by bypassing the Senate confirmation process to install ideologues,” the two Democrats said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DHS had no immediate comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The GAO analysis traces the violation back to a tumultuous period at DHS in 2019 when then Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned. It found that she was improperly replaced by Kevin McAleenan under the rules governing succession in federal agencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
McAleenan altered the rules of succession after he was subsequently removed but GAO’s legal analysis concluded that the later appointments of Wolf and Cuccinelli were invalid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
DHS is the third-largest Cabinet agency with about 240,000 employees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Government Accountability Office says acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, are ineligible to run the agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":40,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,31,33,9,40],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3337],"class_list":["post-20953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight","category-watchdogs"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"T6LMMSNN4FFR3NZEM24ADJ2F2I","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/watchdogs\/2020\/08\/14\/watchdog-homeland-security-officials-were-wrongly-appointed\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n