Sen. Mark Kirk calls on IMF chief to step down
Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois called Wednesday for the resignation or dismissal of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund official who is being held in a New York jail after allegedly sexually assaulting a chambermaid in a Manhattan hotel.
Kirk, a Republican, said the criminal allegations against Strauss-Kahn “are alarming and undermine the confidence in the institution at a critical juncture in our economic history.”
Strauss-Kahn, he said, “had forfeited our confidence and should resign or be fired.” He is now jailed on Rikers Island in New York City.
Kirk, skipping over the salacious allegations in the case, bolstered his call for Strauss-Kahn’s ouster by citing the IMF’s “controversial bailouts of governments in Greece and Ireland and Portugal.”
“I remain especially concerned about the U.S. taxpayer share of funding these European bailouts and the American taxpayers’ exposure to new sovereign risks,” he said.
Aides posted his remarks from the Senate floor on his Twitter account, @SenatorKirk, leading some Twitter followers to question whether Strauss-Kahn was being denied the presumption of innocence.
kskiba@tribune.com
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