Who is the State Department inspector general briefing Congress today?

Steve Linick, the State Department's inspector general, is set to hold an "urgent" briefing Wednesday with senior congressional staff members after Secretary Mike Pompeo Tuesday accused lawmakers of "intimidating and bullying" State Department officials by calling them for depositions related to the Ukraine inquiry.

Posted 1:36 p.m. Oct 2, 2019 — Updated 1:43 p.m. Oct 2, 2019

Jennifer Hansler

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Devan Cole, CNN

CNN — Steve Linick, the State Department's inspector general, is set to hold an "urgent" briefing Wednesday with senior congressional staff members after Secretary Mike Pompeo Tuesday accused lawmakers of "intimidating and bullying" State Department officials by calling them for depositions related to the Ukraine inquiry.

The meeting comes hours after Pompeo admitted earlier Wednesday that he was on the July 25 phone call in which President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, though this is no evidence of wrongdoing by the former vice president.

Linick, who was appointed to his post in September 2013, has a history of serving in oversight positions. At the State Department he oversaw the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server

He previously served as inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency from 2010 until 2013.

Linick was also an assistant US attorney in California and Virginia. He served as executive director of the Department of Justice's National Procurement Fraud Task Force as well as deputy chief of the fraud section in the DOJ Criminal Division from 2006 to 2010.

"During his tenure at the Department of Justice, he supervised and participated in white-collar criminal fraud cases involving, among other things, corruption and contract fraud against the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan," according to his State Department biography.

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