First created among the post-Watergate government reforms aimed at increasing oversight and decreasing corruption and inefficiencies in federal departments, the Office of Inspector General began in 1976 after an act of Congress was passed.
The first inspector general oversaw the Department of Health and Human Services and was charged with eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid.
Then the Inspector General Act of 1978 created 12 departmental inspectors general. Decades later, there are over 70 federal departments and agencies overseen by IGs. The nonpartisan offices use special agents and auditors, including forensic auditors with deep expertise. They protect the American citizenry and have greatly increased taxpayer trust in the way our government operates in Washington, D.C.
It’s been a successful endeavor, and one that has been seen by both Republicans and Democrats as a mostly apolitical one.
Most are selected within the agencies themselves, and then operate independently. But as the program has grown, some of the IGs are appointed by presidents, and confirmed by the Senate. These inspectors general are considered political in nature, and reflect the personalities and priorities of the current White House. But there are still rules to be followed when a president wants to replace a current IG with one more to his liking.
President Donald Trump broke those rules — surprise, surprise — the night of Jan. 24 when he fired over a dozen inspectors general. They were let go without notice by email. Not that he cares much about that, but what Trump did violates a federal law requiring a 30-day notice to Congress about removing an inspector general. Those fired came from positions in the Pentagon, departments of State, Veterans Affairs and Interior. The president is supposed to tell Congress what the cause for the removal is. It’s not a very complicated process. Pretty much any reason will do. But there is a process. And when it is not followed, it adds to the evidence that what we have here is an imperial presidency operating without regard to norms established not for their own sake but to ensure that the rule of law rather than presidential caprice is in charge of our government.
And we would note that the very fact that those fired were not some kind of hidebound deep state bureaucrats merely slurping from the federal trough but honorable independent officials protecting the taxpayer dollar only increases the fear that the Trump White House 2.0 will again be one in which whim rather than wisdom rules the day.
Here’s what the fired Mark Greenblatt, appointed by Trump himself as the inspector general of the Interior Department five years ago, had to say: “This raises an existential threat with respect to the primary independent oversight function in the federal government,” Greenblatt said in an interview with The New York Times. “We have preserved the independence of inspectors general by making them not swing with every change in political party.”
He added that the credibility of all inspectors general would be at issue if Trump put in “lackeys that are rubber-stamping his programs and exonerating allegations for his own people willy-nilly.” He said that the move may well give the next Democratic president incentive to fire all IGs, too, setting off “a never-ending cycle of politicization.”
Trump on Saturday after the firings: “Some people thought that some were unfair.” Instead, he said, it was “a very standard thing to do.”
That is not true. Most presidents do remove one or two inspectors general on taking office. While Ronald Reagan fired more when he reached the White House, he later rehired many of them. The norm is that almost all IGs remain in office under a new presidency. We’d like to see a return to that norm.