A federal government watchdog said Friday that Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, senior officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), had been illegally appointed to their current positions in the department accused of implementing President Trump’s immigration agenda.
In a decision published Friday, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that former acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan did not have the authority to change the line of succession prior to his resignation last fall, prompting Wolf was not fit to succeed him. Hence adding the watchdog, Wolf also lacks authority to change the order of succession that Cuccinelli made acting deputy secretary.
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When Kirstjen Nielsen, the last confirmed secretary of the department, resigned in April 2019, the next one should usually be Christopher Krebs, the director of the Agency for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security (CISA). However, McAleenan, then commissioner of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), was appointed.
“As such, Mr. McAleenan did not have the authority to amend the Secretary’s existing designation,” the Government Accountability Office wrote Friday in its decision. “Hence, Ms. Wolf and Cuccinelli were named after their respective positions of Acting Secretary and Senior Officer performing the duties of Deputy Secretary by reference to an invalid order of succession.”
The Congressional watchdog said it did not investigate the legality of subsequent actions and policies that followed the invalid appointments. That question was referred to the Homeland Security Inspector General.
DHS said it disagreed with Friday’s legal opinion, calling it a “baseless report.” White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Before succeeding McAleenan as acting secretary, Wolf headed the DHS policy office and served as Nielsen chief of staff. After maintaining a relatively low profile as the department’s leader, Wolf has come to the fore in recent months, and vigorously defended his decision to send federal agents to Portland during a wave of anti-racism protests that are sometimes violent. values.
Prior to his appointment as the second-highest ranking officer at DHS, Cuccinelli led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on an acting basis, overseeing a series of policies restricting asylum and legal immigration. In addition to being the senior official performing the duties of the DHS Deputy Secretary, he remains, on paper, the senior officer performing the duties of the USCIS Director.
Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, has also not been nominated to be confirmed by the House of Representatives for his current position. His inflammatory rhetoric and support for anti-establishment Republicans have made him a controversial figure, even among GOP lawmakers, who expressed concern about his appointment last year. Despite this, Cuccinelli is the de facto chief government spokesman for the administration’s strict immigration policy.
In March, a federal judge in Washington, DC, said, ried that Cuccinelli was wrongfully appointed to lead USCIS, and two of its guidelines restricting access to asylum seekers on the Mexican border are invalid to lawyers.
On Thursday, the Justice Department appealed that decision.
Democratic representatives Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney, chairmen of the Homeland Security and Oversight Committees, respectively, said Friday’s decision was illustrated by the Trump administration in its “urgency” to pursue a “radical agenda” “to be executed via DHS.
“GAO’s damning opinion paints a disturbing picture of the Trump administration playing quickly and loosely through the process of approving the First Chamber to install ideologues,” lawmakers said in a joint statement.
Thompson and Maloney called on Wolf to return to his Senate-confirmed position as head of the DHS policy office and urged Cuccinelli to step down completely from the federal government and give up his “unprofessional” Twitter account.
Sara Cook contributed to this report.
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