Trump ousts at least 15 independent inspectors general in late-night purge

The White House removed the independent inspectors general of nearly every Cabinet-level agency in an unprecedented 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 late Friday by emails from White House personnel director Sergio Gor that they had been terminated immediately, according to people familiar with the actions, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private messages. The watchdogs at Homeland Security and Justice were the only Cabinet-level inspector generals spared.

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. The legal uncertainty could create awkward encounters on Monday, when several watchdogs who were told they were fired planned to show up in their offices to work anyway.

It was unclear Saturday what motivated the removals, one of many first-week actions that have shown Trump’s willingness to purge the federal government of dozens of leaders - both career officials and those who are politically appointed - he views as disloyal to his agenda.

Oversight of the government’s largest agencies was left in limbo Saturday, as the Senate-confirmed watchdogs at the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration were ousted.

“It’s a widespread massacre,” one of the fired watchdogs said. “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.”

It was unclear whom the Trump administration would install to replace the ousted watchdogs. Any inspector general must be replaced in an acting role by someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate or already served in the watchdog community. Congress amended the law after Trump installed political loyalists to replace some of the five watchdogs he fired in quick succession in his first term.

Many of those dismissed Friday were Republicans or Trump appointees from his first term, which stunned the watchdog community. But one prominent Democratic appointee survived - 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. As the Justice Department enters a highly politicized term under a president who has been clear he wants to “seek retribution” against prosecutors who led investigations into his conduct, Horowitz’s oversight role will be more visible than ever.

Trump also left in place Joseph V. Cuffari Jr., the embattled inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security, the government’s third-largest agency. A Trump appointee, Cuffari was under investigation for years by an independent panel of watchdogs, which found in October that he misled the Senate during his nomination process and committed other misconduct during his five years in office.

Cuffari’s oversight of Trump’s second-term crackdown on undocumented immigration, a top priority of his administration, is likely to come under intense scrutiny.

The chairman of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency challenged the White House’s action in a letter to Gor late Friday.

“I recommend that you reach out to White House Counsel to discuss your intended course of action. At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General,” wrote Hannibal “Mike” Ware, inspector general of the Small Business Administration and acting inspector general at the Social Security Administration.

Ware, who was among those fired, cited a law Congress approved in 2022 that requires the White House to inform Capitol Hill 30 days before removing inspectors general and to provide a “substantial rationale” for the decision.

The emails informing the watchdogs of their dismissals rippled across federal agencies. 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.”

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 Post. Vice President JD Vance on Saturday morning swore Hegseth into his new position, but neither addressed the firings.

White House aides have not responded to several requests 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.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) called Trump’s action a “chilling purge.”

“These firings are Donald Trump’s way of telling us he is terrified of accountability and is hostile to facts and to transparency,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Saturday.

Some in Trump’s party have been outspoken defenders of the independence of inspectors general, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In a statement Saturday, Grassley said: “There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30 day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress.”

As of mid-day Saturday, the Trump administration had not designated acting successors at the watchdog agencies, leaving their anxious staffs in limbo. At HUD, employees received an email from the deputy inspector general at 11:45 p.m. Friday after Trump appointee Rae Oliver Davis was dismissed.

“We will let you know when we have more information,” the email said, noting Davis’ termination but not naming an acting leader.

The situation at Treasury was also complicated. Deputy inspector general Loren Sciurba has been in charge at that office since the acting inspector general retired in December. Sciurba was informed Friday that he was dismissed from his position, but as a career civil servant he cannot be fired outright from the department, according to federal personnel rules, people familiar with the matter said.

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 the findings to Congress and the public.

The five watchdogs Trump ousted in 2020 started 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 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 Veterans Affairs, 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. Missal also issued an embarrassing investigation last May of $11 million in bonuses VA handed out to more than 180 senior executives, with several taking home more than $100,000. The bonuses came from funds that Congress earmarked to recruit and keep staff needed to process billions of dollars in new veterans benefits.

“Inspectors General are nonpartisan and independent, and ensure transparency from our federal government,” Missal, an Obama appointee who served eight years as the VA watchdog, said in an interview. “We fight fraud, waste and abuse every day. I am proud of the work we did to improve services and benefits for veterans and their families.”

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.

“Trump’s Friday night coup to overthrow legally protected independent inspectors general is an attack on transparency and accountability, essential ingredients in our democratic form of government,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (Virginia), ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said in a statement Saturday. “Replacing independent inspectors general with political hacks will harm every American who relies on social security, veterans benefits, and a fair hearing at IRS on refunds and audits.”

Before the firings, there were more than 70 inspectors general across the federal government, some with large staffs numbering in the thousands. Thirty-two required Senate confirmation.

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.

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.