WASHINGTON _ The appointments of acting Homeland Security Secretary, Chad Wolf and his aide, Ken Cuccinelli, were invalid, the Government Accountability Office said Friday.
The GAO said the Department of Homeland Security didn't follow the proper succession rules in making Wolf the acting secretary and in making Cuccinelli the senior official performing the duties of deputy secretary. The GAO report came at the request of the heads of two House committees.
"Messrs. Wolf and Cuccinelli were named to their respective positions of Acting Secretary and Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary by reference to an invalid order of succession," the GAO said. It declined to draw conclusions about the consequences of their service, saying it hadn't been asked.
The succession problem arose in the wake of the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in April 2019. Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, became acting secretary. He held the job until November 2019, when he resigned and Wolf rose to become acting secretary.
The GAO said the Homeland Security Act established its own succession rules for department positions requiring Senate approval. Just before resigning, Nielsen laid out a plan for succession under varying conditions, but the department then failed to follow the procedure for a vacancy created by a resignation.
The GAO report said McAleenan should also not have risen to the top job because he wasn't in the line of succession to replace a secretary who left because of resignation. McAleenan also amended the line of succession before quitting, but because he was not validly appointed his changes were also invalid.
The GAO issued the report at the request of the heads of the House Homeland Security Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
