This story originally appeared in The Wasington Post 1-25-2025 Ruth Marcus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/25/trump-firing-14-inspectors-general-illegal/?utm_source=pocket_saves

Trump’s Friday night massacre is blatantly illegal

The firing of at least 15 inspectors general foreshadows a Donald Trump unbound and heedless of the rule of law.

January 25, 2025 at 3:18 p.m. EST Yesterday at 3:18 p.m. EST

Contempt for law. Contempt for Congress. Contempt for oversight. That is the lesson of President Donald Trump’s Friday night massacre of at least 15 inspectors general — most of them appointed by Trump himself in his first term.

The blatantly illegal action is troubling in itself — nonpartisan inspectors general play a critical role in assuring the lawful and efficient operations of government, in Democratic and Republican administrations alike. An administration supposedly focused on making government more efficient would be empowering inspectors general, not firing them en masse.

But this episode is even more alarming than that. It offers a chilling foreshadowing of Trump unbound, heedless of the rule of law and unwilling to tolerate any potential impediment to his authority.

Over a period of six weeks late into his first term, Trump ousted five inspectors general who had crossed him, a move that was deeply concerning but within his power as president. In a nod to the president’s constitutional prerogatives, the 1978 law establishing independent inspectors general authorizes the chief executive to dismiss them but requires that he provide Congress “the reasons for any such removal” at least 30 days beforehand.

In 2020, Trump complied with that minimal notice. Two years later, Congress, with bipartisan support, tightened the statute, specifying that the president must inform lawmakers of the ‘‘substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons,’’ for the action.

On Friday night, the newly emboldened president ignored all that, summarily firing the inspectors general at 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. The email, from White House head of presidential personnel Sergio Gor, said the firings were “due to changing priorities” and announced that the dismissals were “effective immediately.”

I try to stay away from hyperbolic words such as autocrat and tyrant, but in this instance they seem fitting — and necessary. The changing priority would appear to be letting the president function without fear of oversight.

“This is unprecedented, this is unfortunate and it doesn’t seem to comport with the law,” said Glenn Fine, one of the inspectors general removed during Trump’s first term. “It undermines the credibility and independence of IG’s and their effectiveness if they’re viewed as tied to one political party or another rather than as independent and objective.”

Fine, who served as the Justice Department’s inspector general from 2000 until 2011 and acting inspector general at the Defense Department from 2016 to 2020, is the author of “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government.” (One of those removed Friday night, EPA inspector general Sean O’Donnell, was tapped by Trump in 2020 to replace Fine at the Defense Department.)

One of the few presidentially appointed inspectors general who appear to have been spared is the Justice Department’s Michael Horowitz, a well-regarded Obama appointee whose reports on the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation were campaign trail fodder for Trump allies. Trump also did not dismiss the widely criticized inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, Joseph V. Cuffari Jr.

Some of the inspectors general, I’m told, might turn up for work next week because they view their removal as unlawful.

“I recommend that you reach out to White House Counsel to discuss your intended course of action,” Small Business Administration inspector general Hannibal “Mike” Ware replied to Gor in a letter obtained by Politico. “At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General,” added Ware, who heads the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

The firings don’t just pose a fundamental challenge to the inspectors general and the agencies they serve — they are a threat to the authority of Congress itself. What is the point of laws if lawmakers permit them to be so cavalierly ignored? Yet the response of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has been a thundering champion of inspectors general, was disturbingly muted.

“There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump,” Grassley said in a statement. “Regardless, the 30 day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress.” Well, that sure tells them what’s what.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who earlier this month launched a bipartisan “Inspector General Caucus” to “empower executive branch watchdogs to find ways to eliminate waste and make government more efficient,” did not respond to requests for comment.

Congress and the rest of us need to closely watch what comes next. Presumably, Trump didn’t remove the incumbent inspectors general just to let their deputies continue business as usual. “You can weaponize these jobs,” one of the ousted inspectors general told me. “You can ignore bad things. You can go after the prior administration. You can try to filter or edit work that comes out. They’ve taken away one of the huge checks and balances.”

And that was precisely the point.

By Ruth Marcus Ruth Marcus is an associate editor and columnist for The Post. Follow on X@RuthMarcus