As a rule, inspectors general maintain an important but largely anonymous role within the federal government. Their mandate, the result of post-Watergate reforms a half-century ago, is to serve as independent watchdogs within federal departments and agencies, ensuring that officials abide by applicable laws, all while rooting out corruption, ethical lapses and mismanagement.

Donald Trump, true to form, has come to see inspectors general as annoying hindrances.

To that end, on the first Friday night of his second term, Trump fired at least 18 inspectors general. The president didn’t appear to have the legal authority to take such steps, but he did it anyway.

In the months that followed, the total number of IG firings reached roughly two dozen, which coincided with the White House defunding the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the umbrella organization for 72 inspectors general across the federal government — despite the fact that Congress had already agreed to fund the office.

As things stand, the president and his team didn’t bother to fill many of the vacancies, but that’s only part of the systemic problem. Making matters worse are the controversial loyalists whom Trump did tap to serve as IGs. NOTUS reported:

The once-independent system that Congress established after Watergate has radically transformed in Trump’s second term. Trump’s unprecedented firing of nearly 20 inspectors general has unraveled the firewalls government’s ombudsmen have operated under for decades. The new watchdogs are erasing the lines between agency leadership and their own watchdog offices, Office of Inspector General employees told NOTUS, openly suggesting they should work hand-in-glove with the Trump administration to advance its goals.

“All the adults have left the room,” one senior OIG official said. “All these new IGs are lining up behind political leadership as if they’re lapdogs.”

The list of problematic choices is not short. Trump’s choice to serve as the Interior Department’s inspector general, for example, co-authored the far-right policy blueprint Project 2025. His choice to serve as the Labor Department’s top internal watchdog is a scandal-plagued former congressman. The inspector general at the Department of Veterans Affairs is a former senior aide to VA Secretary Doug Collins. The list goes on.

The point isn’t just that these IGs are partisans and operatives of dubious qualifications; the point is that choosing partisans and operatives of dubious qualifications defeats the purpose of even having inspectors general.

Michael Missal, who spent nine years as inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs, told The New York Times last week, “The president wanted his own IGs. When you have your own IGs, you lose the credibility and integrity of the work. If people think that you’re doing it to support the administration, then the whole concept that was created in 1978 of independent, nonpartisan inspectors general goes away.”

As a consequence, the opportunity for oversight is effectively disappearing: The Republican-led Congress clearly has no interest in accountability; the federal courts have been stacked with too many partisans and ideologues, and that leaves inspectors generals, whose very purpose has been corrupted by the White House.

The result opens the door to weaker legal safeguards, more corruption, more ethical lapses and more mismanagement — which might very well be the point of the whole endeavor.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Team Trump’s campaign against inspectors general is an underappreciated scandal appeared first on MS NOW.

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