General Motors CEO Mary Barra testifies before a Senate Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety & Insurance.

After praising GM CEO Mary Barra in her opening remarks, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) later took her to task for not firing the automaker’s top lawyer, Michael Millikin, during a senate hearing today.

McCaskill, who chairs the senate subcommittee holding the hearing, blasted Millikin calling him incompetent, then asked Barra why she didn’t fire him.

She also questioned why Millikin didn’t inform the automaker’s board or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about possible punitive damages related to GM’s settling of previous cases.

“This is a either gross negligence or gross incompetence on the part of a lawyer,” she said.

Barra quickly defended Millikin calling him a man of “tremendously high integrity” and saying that the blame lies with the people who answered to him and that those lawyers had been fired.

Millikin claimed he learned about the ignition switch problems in February and acted immediately. Barra said Millikin made changes within the department, including any potential settlement, no matter how small, must now be brought to him for approval. Prior to that change, only settlements exceeding $5 million came to him.

(Barra withstands scrutiny of Congressional subcommittee. For more, Click Here.)

The call to fire Millikin was not made by McCaskill alone. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also called for Millikin to be fired. Blumenthal is the former Connecticut Attorney General and suggested an ongoing Justice Department investigation will likely find evidence of “cover-up, concealment, deceit and even fraud” within GM’s legal team.

(Click Here for details on who is eligible for GM’s victims’ compensation plan.)

Millikin also told Blumenthal that GM would not wouldn’t make documents given to former U.S. Attorney Anthony Valukas, which he used to produce the scathing report about GM’s dysfunctional corporate structure, public nor would the automaker waive the legal shield from its bankruptcy that protects it from lawsuits related to crashes that happened before July of 2009.

(To see more about the winding down of GM’s blitz of recalls, Click Here.)

The subcommittee also took the chance to criticize the implementation of the GM’s victims fund. The administrator of the fund, Kenneth Feinberg, testified before the committee prior to Barra, Millikin and Delphi Corp. CEO Rodney O’Neal.

Blumenthal asked Feinberg if he thought the fund should expanded to include victims in accidents in other GM vehicles, specifically 8.2 million recalled for a similar ignition switch issue. Feinberg deflected the question saying it wasn’t up to him to decide what vehicles should be included.

Feinberg was also taken to task for not including owners who suffered financial harm due to the problem, but he noted that the fund was designed to help victims who suffered loss of life or were injured.