Trump Declares War On The Watchdogs
If there's no one around to catch you doing crimes, it's like it never happened.
On Friday night, President Trump fired 18 inspectors general, including those overseeing the Departments of State, Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor and Defense, as well as the Small Business Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. As Senator Elizabeth Warren observed, this is an unambiguous signal that the new president intends to do a bunch of extremely corrupt shit across all branches of the government.
And while it’s clear that what Trump has done is illegal, we should not lose sight of the fact that it is first and foremost a declaration that non-partisan oversight is illegitimate in and of itself. The president is announcing that he and his henchmen plan to break a whole lot of laws and that they will take revenge on anyone who dares to point it out.
What do Inspector Generals inspect?
If the Trump administration really did intend to root out waste, fraud, and abuse — as opposed to looting the federal government and gutting civil rights — inspectors general would be vital to their mission. Since 1978 when Congress enacted the original Inspector General Act, IGs have conducted oversight and audits as part of their mission to probe corruption and mismanagement, aid Congress in its oversight role, and inform the public.
IGs are appointed by the president, but when President Reagan removed all of President Carter’s appointees, he faced significant congressional pushback. Since then there’s been a strong norm that IGs stay on through multiple administrations.
In 2020, President Trump removed several IGs, most egregiously Steve Linnick at the State Department, and Michael Atkinson, the IG for the Intelligence Community. Trump admitted that he fired Linnick at the request of then-Secretary Mike Pompeo, who was under investigation for a veritable orgy of grift. And Atkinson got crosswise with Trump when he did his job and told Congress about the Ukraine whistleblower. Trump also fired Christi Grimm, the acting IG at the Department of Health and Human Services, after she revealed extensive covid mismanagement.
In response, Congress updated the Inspector General Act of 1978 to insulate agency watchdogs. The amendment, known as The Securing Inspector General Independence Act of 2021, specifies that if “an Inspector General is removed from office or is transferred to another position or location within an establishment, the President shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of Congress, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer. (See 5 U.S.C. § 403(b).)
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