Trump ousts at least 12 independent inspectors general in late-night purge
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The White House late Friday fired the independent inspectors general of at least 12 major federal agencies in a purge that could clear the way for President Donald Trump to install loyalists in the crucial role of identifying fraud, waste and abuse in the government.
The inspectors general were notified by emails from the White House personnel director that they had been terminated immediately, according to people familiar with the actions, who like others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private messages.
The dismissals appeared to violate federal law, which requires Congress to receive 30 days’ notice of any intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general.
Oversight of some of the government’s largest agencies was affected: the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration.
It was unclear Friday whom the Trump administration would install to replace the ousted watchdogs.
Most of those dismissed were Trump appointees from his first term, which stunned the watchdog community. One prominent inspector general survived the purge — Michael Horowitz at the Justice Department, an appointee of President Barack Obama who has issued reports critical of both the Biden administration and Trump’s first administration.
“It’s a widespread massacre,” said one of the fired inspectors general. “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.”
The emails informing the watchdogs of their dismissals rippled across the agencies Friday. Another fired inspector general learned of his ouster by reading the email for the first time while on the phone with a Washington Post reporter who had called to ask about it. The person reacted by saying the new administration “does not want anyone in this role who is going to be independent.”
“IGs have done exactly what the president says he wants: to fight fraud waste and abuse and make the government more effective,” that person added. “Firing this many of us makes no sense. It is counter to those goals.”
The news of the firings came around the same time that the Senate narrowly confirmed Trump nominee Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. In a written question in recent days, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) asked Hegseth if he would commit to maintaining the Defense Department’s independent inspector general.
“If confirmed, I commit to protecting the DoD IG’s independence,” he responded before Friday’s vote, according to a copy of the questionnaire viewed by The Washington Post.
White House aides did not respond to a request for comment.
Some inspectors general are presidential appointees, while others are designated by the heads of their agencies. They serve indefinite terms and typically span administrations to insulate them from shifts in political winds. A president can remove them but must notify both chambers of Congress in advance.
“It’s a purge of independent watchdogs in the middle of the night,” Warren said Friday in a post on social media. “Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse, and preventing misconduct. President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.”
Some in Trump’s party have been outspoken defenders of the independence of inspectors general, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In November, Grassley told Politico that Trump should refrain from removing them.
“I work closely with all the inspector generals and I think I’ve got a good reputation for defending them. And I intend to defend them,” Grassley said, according to the report.
The system of Senate-confirmed inspectors general at large agencies was established in the late 1970s, after the Watergate scandal, to conduct independent investigations and audits of federal spending and operations and report their findings to Congress and the public.
Trump ousted five watchdogs in quick succession during his first term in 2020, starting with Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general who alerted Congress to the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Trump had appointed Atkinson. The president also removed the State Department’s chief watchdog, who had begun investigating alleged misconduct by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Many lawmakers at the time said they believed the watchdogs were fired simply because of their involvement in investigations that cast the first Trump administration in a negative light.
But Friday’s dismissals befuddled and stunned the watchdog community, as many of those let go had done hard-hitting investigations of Biden administration operations.
For example, Michael Missal, the inspector general at the Veterans Affairs Department, oversaw multiple investigations of how the Biden administration handled the agency’s troubled effort to build a massive electronic health records system for veterans’ medical information. Among other conclusions, the reports showed that veterans had been put at risk as their prescriptions were lost in the system. The project has been paused for months.
Mark Greenblatt, a Trump appointee at the Interior Department who was fired Friday, released a lengthy investigation in 2021 concluding that when the U.S. Park Police led law enforcement officers into a crowd of mostly peaceful protesters outside Lafayette Square during the first Trump administration, they did so as part of a plan made days earlier to build a fence around the park to protect officers — not to facilitate the visit minutes later by the president to a nearby church.
That report was largely viewed as exonerating Trump, who came under heavy criticism after the incident. At the time, Trump praised Greenblatt’s report in a tweet and thanked him, although not by name.
Before the firings, there were more than 70 inspectors general across the federal government, some with large staffs numbering in the thousands.
The remaining federal watchdogs now face the vexing decision of whether to soften their oversight of the new administration, or pledge to their staff that they will not back down on tough investigations — at the risk of being fired.
Among those apparently spared Friday was Joseph V. Cuffari Jr., the embattled inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security. A Trump appointee, Cuffari was found in October by an independent panel of watchdogs to have misled the Senate during his nomination process and committed other misconduct during his five years in office.
The news of the dismissals left some staff employees in the inspector general community “absolutely shocked,” said a senior executive in one office, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
“This is totally unprecedented. It’s what we were fearing. There was noise during the transition about him doing this and some statements made during his campaign” by Trump’s aides, the executive said.
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Did it ever occur to you that he may replace them?
With totally acceptable choices the left will be happy with I am sure. S/
At some point, if this keeps up, Trump is going to have to fear for his life.
Why is some TDS driven mighty mental midget leftist stoked on by crazed Democrats and their media sycophants screaming Nazi, Fascist, who is going to take over the US going to give it another go?
Screw the Establishment pricks- time to get the career fucks more loyal to the parties, rich elitists, corporations, and maintaining the corrupt status quo than this country- they hell out of government.
Horowitz should be very nervous. Trump doesn't hold any love for him- and after the shit he pulled with his reports and allowing the Biden DOJ and FBI to become tools of the Democrat party- why should he? Horowitz sat on his hands for most of the last 9 years. Maybe they are collecting evidence on him; and don't want him to hide/destroy it.
There has already been two attempts.
You do know that other Presidents have fired Inspector Generals. I know that he may not have given proper notice. He should do it now.
Then turn them over to me!
Irrelevant. Nobody is claiming that a PotUS cannot fire Inspector Generals.
Do you really want to put forth a pretense that you think this move by Trump was a thoughtful firing based on merit? Are you really going to ignore how unusual this move is and how well it fits into Trump's modus operandi? That it is not surprising that Trump would seek to replace the watchdogs with sycophants?
We do not yet know the details, but the likelihood that this is Trump continuing to surround himself with sycophants who will do his bidding is substantially more than the likelihood that this was a responsible move to fire people on merit.
17 Inspectors General were fired in one swoop. The chances that all of them were objectively corrupt, biased or incompetent it seems to me would be millions to one.
These continued pathetic excuses for Trump are sickening. It shows just how far Trump will be able to go before the nation cries foul. This is a terrible state of affairs for the USA.
‘These continued pathetic excuses for Trump are sickening’
You may think that but there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Look around you. The Trump resistance is getting smaller and smaller and far less relevant……if they ever were.
Not here. This place is special.
Cleaning out the swamp ….
Naivety worse than that of Neville Chamberlain.
Denial worse than an addict fighting rehab.
Explain, exactly, how Trump removing and replacing watchdogs / auditors over his operations is cleaning out the swamp?
Is it your supposition that all these “watchdogs” are doing a good job?
My supposition is that there is no reason (none has been provided) to attempt to (illegally) fire these folks other than to seat loyalists.
That is far more likely than the idea that Trump started cleaning house with those who are verifying that his house is in order.
Yes because as we all know, there is no waste, fraud or abuse in those Federal departments they oversee. /S
Get used to it. The swamp cleaning begins …..
Strawman. I made no such claim.
If you think Trump is trying to fire these watchdogs because they have failed in their jobs (or whatever) then make your case rather than make cheap strawman arguments.
I just did.[✘]
[✘]
Trump will attempt to appoint a dozen DEI IG’s with the only qualification being loyalty to Trump.
Trump called media outlets that criticize him "The Enemy Of The People" in a late night rant last night.
Truth Details | Truth Social
"The Enemy of the People" can refer to a political opposition to the ruling power group that is acting against the interests of the greater social unit, such as the political party, society, or the nation 1 . It can also refer to a play published in 1882 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, which tells the story of Dr. Thomas Stockmann, who discovers that the water in the public baths of his small Norwegian town is contaminated 2 . The play is concerned with the problems of corruption and pollution, the relation between the individual and society, and the likelihood for moral ideals to be pushed aside by the pressures of self-interest 3 .
President Donald Trump to install loyalists in the crucial role of identifying fraud, waste and abuse in the government.
Identifying for the purposes of camouflaging.