A U.S. government watchdog agency said on Friday that the appointments of two top homeland security officials in the administration of President Donald Trump were improper.
Freddie Joyner has more.
Watchdog calls top DHS appointments improper
A U.S. government watchdog agency on Friday said that the appointments of two top homeland security officials in the administration of President Donald Trump were improper.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the appointments of the acting secretary of homeland security, Chad Wolf and the acting deputy secretary of homeland security Ken Cuccinelli did not follow processes outlined in federal law.
In a 12-page decision, the GAO found that the department did not follow the proper chain of succession following the departure of Senate-confirmed Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in 2019.
The GAO referred the issue to the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the group has little enforcement power.
Trump made a crackdown on immigration a major focus of his first four-year term in office and his campaign for re-election.
At the same time, he has cycled through leaders at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement.
Congress members Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney have called on Wolf to step down and return to his Senate-confirmed role in the department's policy office and for Cuccinelli to resign in light of the watchdog findings.