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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community who handled the whistleblower complaint that triggered Trump’s impeachment.

Trump informed the Senate intelligence committee Friday of his decision to fire Atkinson, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Trump said in the letter that it is “vital” that he has confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general, and “that is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general.”

He did not elaborate, except to say that “it is extremely important that we promote the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and activities,” and that inspectors general are critical to those goals.

Atkinson was the first to inform Congress about an anonymous whistleblower complaint last year that described Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden and his son. That complaint prompted a House investigation that ultimately resulted in Trump’s impeachment.

In letters to lawmakers in August and September, Atkinson said he believed the complaint was “urgent” and “credible.” But the acting Director of National Intelligence at the time, Joseph Maguire, said he did not believe it met the definition of “urgent,” and tried to withhold the complaint from Congress.

After a firestorm, the White House released the complaint, revealing that in a July telephone call, Trump had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens. The House launched an inquiry, and three months later voted to impeach Trump. The Republican-led Senate acquitted Trump in February.

Trump said in the letter he would nominate an individual “who has my full confidence” at a later date.

Democrats reacted swiftly to Atkinson’s removal. The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, said it was “unconscionable” that Trump would fire Atkinson in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We should all be deeply disturbed by ongoing attempts to politicize the nation’s intelligence agencies,” Warner said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led the House impeachment inquiry, said “the president’s dead of night decision puts our country and national security at even greater risk.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement that “President Trump fires people for telling the truth.”

Atkinson’s firing is part of a larger shakeup in the intelligence community. Maguire, the former acting Director of National Intelligence, was also removed and replaced by a Trump loyalist, Richard Grenell. Trump has nominated Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe to the permanent position, but the Senate has yet to move on his nomination.

Tom Monheim, a career intelligence professional, will become the acting inspector general for the intelligence community, according to an intelligence official who was not authorized to discuss personnel changes and spoke only on condition of anonymity. Monheim is currently the general counsel of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

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At this outlier moment in our history, every story is about coronavirus–even last week’s perfectly staid announcement that Chicago History Museum president Gary T. Johnson will be retiring at the end of the year.

It followed, by ten days, the announcement that the museum, like every other cultural venue in the city, was closing its doors until further notice.

Johnson says neither the pandemic nor an atypical $234,000 operating budget shortfall last year influenced his decision. After 15 years on the job, in a position he took after a 28-year career as an attorney, the retirement date’s been on his and his board’s calendar for a while. As for the fiscal red ink: it’s a relatively small deficit, he says, after 11 years of operating in the black.

Thanks to the virus, however, Johnson’s tenure will be bookended by closures. When he started in 2005–taking over for Lonnie Bunch, who left to become founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and now heads up the entire Smithsonian Institution–the museum was about to go into a nine-month shutdown for a reconstruction that also became a reinvention.

The museum, founded in 1856, is the oldest cultural institution in the city, and it had retained its original name: the Chicago Historical Society. Johnson was dismayed by the fact that many people thought it was a private club–a problem the board had long been debating. When it reopened in 2006–tradition be damned–the “Society” had a new, friendlier moniker: the Chicago History Museum.

Johnson has visited 350 Chicago public schools with artifacts from the Great Chicago Fire in tow; he says it’s what he’s loved most about his job. When asked for historical precedents to the coronavirus crisis, the fire, “one of the three most famous fires in world history,” is what first comes to mind. (The others? Rome and London.)

“It left a third of the population homeless, but the city quickly sprang back,” he says. On the other hand, and perhaps more to the point, there was also the Depression: “an extended event that hit the workforce and businesses very hard.” The museum’s been a national leader in programming about the history of the LGBTQ+ community (an initiative that Johnson says began before he arrived), and he’s overseen a significant expansion of CHM’s photography collections. Among them: the complete body of work by the architectural photography firm Hedrich-Blessing and, after a 2018 purchase of about five million images, the entire archive of Chicago Sun-Times photographs from the 1940s through the early 21st century.

There’s a sorry tale behind that acquisition. In 2009, the financially strapped Sun-Times sold its photo archive to John Rogers, a sports memorabilia dealer from Arkansas. Rogers had become a celebrity of sorts a year earlier when he purchased a Honus Wagner baseball card for $1.6 million, and was also developing a newspaper image business. He would pay newspapers for their negatives and prints and, as part of the deal, would promise to digitize their collections and give them a searchable archive. The papers would usually retain the copyrights; Rogers would get to keep the negatives and prints.

In 2010, the Reader‘s Michael Miner wrote about vintage Sun-Times photos showing up on eBay, priced at less than $10. By 2014 (a year after the Sun-Times decided it didn’t need photographers and infamously fired its entire prizewinning photo staff), Rogers’s businesses were failing and the FBI was raiding his Little Rock home. In 2017, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for selling items that included a fake Heisman trophy.

His assets–including the Sun-Times archive–were liquidated in a bankruptcy sale and purchased by another dealer. When CHM heard about that, Johnson says, they feared the collection would be sold off piecemeal and, in effect, vanish. With donor support, they stepped in and bought it for $125,000.

The first exhibit drawn from the Sun-Times collection was scheduled to debut March 28; now we’ll have to wait until the museum reopens to see it. But a chunk of other photos from that collection have been posted on the CHM website–part of Johnson’s decision, a few years ago, to be a “digital first” museum. The photos look to be mostly from the 1970s: Vietnam war protests; Apollo astronauts on parade; a Gay Liberation Front rally. Oddly, many of them lack a credit for the photographer; CHM vice president John Russick says that likely reflects the state of the collection when they got it.

Johnson says the museum recently donated its stock of personal protective equipment–used, for example, when working with musty materials–to Stroger Hospital. He’s confident that this venerable institution can weather the shutdown, though it’ll be painful.

“It’ll be interesting to see how people become re-accustomed to being in places where there are lots of other people,” he says. “Will they shy away from a place that might be crowded? Or, on the other hand, will they crave it so much that they’ll celebrate that they’re in a welcoming place with other Chicagoans?

“To be determined.” v

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Helmed by charismatic vocalist and guitarist Ryanne van Dorst, Dool combine pop hooks with heady lyrics and complex songwriting that draws from the underbelly of metal, psych, doom, occult rock, and more. Formed in Rotterdam in 2015 by members of Dutch rock outfits Elle Bandita, the Devil’s Blood, and Gold, the band (whose name translates to “Wandering”) have yet to tour the States, but they made waves in the heavy-music world with their 2017 debut, Here Now, There Then. On their brand-new second album, Summerland (Prophecy Productions), Dool lean into the arena-friendly side of their sound without compromising their aesthetic. The album’s name nods to a pagan concept of the afterlife–an idyllic place the soul can visit between incarnations or settle in after reaching a final ascension–and songs such as the title track and album closer “Dust & Shadow” are enhanced by otherworldly, majestic atmospheres. But Dool aren’t concerned solely with what happens after we leave this plane, but also with the road traveled and personal evolution along the way. To that end, they’re more earthbound on tracks such as “Ode to the Future,” anchored by a rich strummed guitar rhythm reminiscent of Patti Smith classic “Dancing Barefoot.” Van Dorst’s vivid lyrics often address themes of self-questioning and strife, and when they’re interwoven into rock epics such as “The Well’s Run Dry” (which features a spoken-word passage from Bolzer front man Okoi Jones), no challenge seems insurmountable. It’s easy to imagine radio-ready album single “Wolf Moon” and rock rager “Be Your Sins” (with a fiery Hammond organ solo by Swedish metal keyboardist Per Wiberg) as gateway drugs for mainstream rock and metal listeners who are primed to discover more esoteric sounds. Dool deliver on that front as well: “God Particle” features a Middle Eastern-inspired intro, a dynamic flow, and an intensity enriched by the album’s backing vocalist, former Devil’s Blood and current Molasses front woman Farida Lemouchi. v

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When British guitarist and vocalist Anna Calvi released her self-titled debut album in 2011, it felt like she’d emerged as a fully formed icon. Drawing from rock, punk, opera, and flamenco guitar, Calvi combined talent, eclecticism, and swagger in a way that had less in common with indie songwriters of her generation than with the likes of Annie Lennox, Prince, and Nick Cave. After putting out her third full-length, 2018’s Hunter, she wrote music for season five of Peaky Blinders, and insofar as that job asked her to delve into the mind of crime boss Tommy Shelby, it might’ve inspired her to look at her recent work with fresh eyes. On the new Hunted, Calvi has stripped down seven songs from Hunter, with help from guests such as Julia Holter and Courtney Barnett. Though some of the material on Hunter was fairly minimalist to begin with–on “Away,” Calvi’s voice floats over guitar strumming and a hushed backdrop of shimmering strings–on the new versions she does away with all window dressing to zero in on stark, raw emotion. On the updated “Eden,” a tale of hiding away with a lover during a rainstorm, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s whispers commingle with Calvi’s angelic croons to conjure an atmosphere even dreamier and more intimate than that of the original. But not every song is so rose-colored or escapist. Anchored by a driving guitar riff, the Hunter version of “Wish” feels powerful and determined, but the Hunted version (which features Idles vocalist Joe Talbot) pushes past the original’s bright, warm surfaces to something unhinged–it even gets a little maniacal when Calvi unleashes an operatic wail. That fierce mood continues through Hunted closer “Indies or Paradise” (the song appears midway through Hunter), where she mixes banshee cries with hushed incantations and trades the original’s chic grooves for blistering guitar rhythms. Making a great record is hard enough, but making one in two distinct and equally enjoyable versions is a humbling accomplishment. v

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If you haven’t already heard Human Impact, you could be forgiven for wondering whether the New York four-piece were soothsayers who’d prophesied humankind’s current struggle with an invisible threat. On “Respirator,” from the group’s new self-titled debut, vocalist and guitarist Chris Spencer (formerly of Unsane) laments, “We’ve made a mistake / Problems that can’t be undone / I see what this will bring / I see, respirator to breathe.” And on “Protestor,” which kicks off with plodding bass and off-kilter keys, Spencer delivers an eerily prescient opening line: “A virus we can’t control.” But this band of noise-rock luminaries–Spencer, bassist Chris Pravdica (Swans, Xiu Xiu), keyboardist Jim Coleman (Cop Shoot Cop), and drummer Phil Puleo (Cop Shoot Cop, Swans)–are so well-versed in dark, apocalyptic, and political themes that it was practically inevitable that some of their lyrics would resonate with our increasingly terrible reality. The longtime friends formed Human Impact in 2018, then spent much of 2019 writing material before making their live debut in New York last August. It’ll be a while before the rest of the country gets to experience the band onstage, but the new album should mollify curious fans (though it might also make the wait for a live show even more difficult). Human Impact aren’t reinventing the wheel–these guys know what they’re good at, and they’re sticking to it, crafting masterful songs whose cacophonous noise, gritty playing, and inescapable hooks summon an atmosphere of despair, dissatisfaction, and isolation. The effect is uncomfortable, for sure, but it’s also cathartic–sometimes the only way to find hope is to dive through the muck. v

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I wish the right-wing miscreants in the federal government were as dependable as Chicago rapper G Herbo. For close to a decade, he’s released albums and mixtapes of rapid-fire drill with reassuring frequency, and even his most run-of-the-mill offerings benefit from his pragmatic empathy and lucid descriptions–he brings a distinctive emotional gravity to his detailed lyrics about the harshness of the city’s impoverished Black enclaves. Born Herbert Wright, Herbo grew up in a part of South Shore so besieged by violence it became known as Terror Town, and in his music he captures both the up-close-and-personal feeling of mortal fear and a large-scale view of the structural inequality that created the circumstances of his life. That baked-in injustice continues to affect him: ever since his arrest for aggravated unlawful use of a loaded weapon in February 2018, for instance, Herbo has had to deal with local venues canceling his shows. But he’s also used his prominent position to benefit those in need–most notably, as he explained in his episode of the TRiiBE’s Block Beat series in September 2018, he’s part of the team that bought Anthony Overton Elementary School (which Rahm Emanuel closed in 2013) to turn it into a hub for job training and youth afterschool programs. On the February album PTSD (Epic/Machine Entertainment Group), Herbo contemplates the lasting effects of growing up in a community where violence took so many of his friends–it may not be literally around the corner for him today, but it’s still playing out in his life, even now that he’s a genuine star (PTSD debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200). He fills his raps to overflowing with anxiety, grief, and compassion, and he delivers his lines with enough force to convince you he can overcome anything. On tracks such as “Gangbangin,” “Lawyer Fees” (featuring Polo G), and “PTSD” (with Juice Wrld, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Uzi Vert), Herbo transmutes his trauma into euphoria without dismissing or oversimplifying the profound emotions that inspire his music. v

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Well, look at that. The world is ending. Suddenly we’re all cooped up, we can’t see friends or loved ones, we can’t go out for pizza, and we can’t grab a beer at the bar. I don’t know about you, but even if people weren’t suffering and dying from coronavirus, I’d be starting to feel really down. I’m frustrated and anxious, I’m stir-crazy, and I’m sleeping terribly. Everything is canceled–tours included–but at least there are still new records coming out. I’m finding the new U.S. Girls album, Heavy Light, to be a little ray of sunshine. U.S. Girls is the project of Toronto-via-Chicago musician Meghan Remy, who has been releasing various strains of experimental pop music under that name since 2007. Her first records skewed toward dark, fuzzy bedroom-recorded starkness, with lo-fi production and drum-machine backing. But she’s since developed her sound and shifted to the brighter side of the street, and Heavy Light is her biggest, cheeriest release yet. This time around Remy plays with lush AM Gold disco feels, foregrounding upbeat funky fun; it certainly wasn’t what I expected, but in these dark times, it was more than welcome. v

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A couple years ago, Chicago archival label Numero Group launched Cabinet of Curiosities, a compilation series focused on fringe private-press releases of yore. A lot of the strange music they’ve reissued under this banner intensely evokes the eras in which its creators lived, and Cabinet of Curiosities comps are unified less by genre than by spirit. The 1980s electronic sounds on 2018’s Escape From Synth City, for example, include glacial new age (“Konya” by Al Gromer Khan), chintzy boogie (“Intellectual Thinking” by New World Music), and progressive house (“Whirr” by Reader contributor Frank Youngwerth); the LP sleeve looks like a classic NES cartridge, a theme that Numero took further by creating an Escape From Synth City side-scrolling video game. The songs on the new Whispers: Lounge Originals ooze the laid-back essence of 1960s hotel bars, martini glasses, and Pat Boone, but the artists push the concept of lounge music to its outer edges. “Kids,” a lo-fi, bittersweet shot of blue-eyed soul from Minnesota singer-songwriter Chuck Senrick, rubs shoulders with “These Moments Now,” a bizarre intergalactic psych-rock romp by North Dakota act Justen O’Brien & Jake. Lounge music generally doesn’t try to draw much attention to itself, but the odd, twisted, and boldly beautiful songs on Whispers definitely deserve it. And this time the LP sleeve looks like a matchbook, naturally. v

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Chicago has many independent hip-hop labels, but few maintain rosters as multigenerational as that of Machine Wash Music. Rapper Daryl “Decay” Stewart cofounded Machine Wash after he had an unsatisfying experience putting out his 2008 album, The Unlikely Hero, through Molemen Records–he wanted a more mutual artist-label relationship. “The process wasn’t the same and I didn’t enjoy making that record as much,” Stewart told Voyage Chicago in 2018. “I went back to my friends and felt we needed to help artist [sic] realize their dream without taking their control.” Machine Wash doesn’t even have a dozen releases yet, but on the new compilation Machine, the label rolls deep, documenting the many current dimensions of underground Chicago hip-hop. Machine features savvy youngsters (Defcee, Green Sllime), long-grinding veterans (Encyclopedia Brown, Stewart’s alter ego Decay, the Llama), producers from the arty beat scene (Lanzo, Uncle El), and an MC who helped build the foundation for the local scene (Ang-13). The comp reframes hip-hop with a peculiar new slant, even when the big-footed beats and rubbery wordplay carry a whiff of tradition–and even the cuts that defy convention sometimes feel like long-lost classics. On “Rats,” rapper-producer Green Sllime attacks a bleary instrumental with glorious non sequiturs like he’s slicing through underbrush with a machete. Few artists sound like Sllime, and I wish more would take notes. v

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Enforced mass social isolation can really make you crave constant stimuli. As each day feels longer than the one before, the slow crawl of hours makes the frenetic dance music on Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood–the latest howler from Chicago-based producer RXM Reality, aka Mike Meegan–sound like a salve. It’s Meegan’s sixth album under that name and his most tightly crafted yet, brimming with ideas. “Exhale” evolves from glossy synth arpeggios to cryptic, fumbling beats, then employs an angelic vocal sample. On “Deaths, Resurrections, and Ascensions” Meegan plays a similar trick: after creating an airy, dizzying vortex of electronics, he injects it with glistening blips and an almost wistful atmosphere. The tracks mutate freely, shaped with the type of confidence that makes for a gripping listen; the constant chaos rarely gives you a moment to catch your breath. Despite their superficial fragmentation, though, Meegan’s jittery productions feel fully formed–like mini worlds unto themselves. This is the key to the success of Blood: no single moment feels more important than any other. Every second contains another explosion of fractured sonics, and they all jell together due to the album’s inspired restlessness. v

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