President Donald Trump failed to provide Congress with a 30-day notice and case-specific reasons as required by law when he fired Inspectors General (IGs) from 18 offices on the night of Friday, Jan. 24. Now, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee want the president to provide them with his rationale for the removals and the names of officials who will serve in an acting capacity.
“While IGs aren’t immune from committing acts requiring their removal, and they can be removed by the president, the law must be followed,” Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrote in a letter to the president. “The communication to Congress must contain more than just broad and vague statements, rather it must include sufficient facts and details to assure Congress and the public that the termination is due to real concerns about the Inspector General’s ability to carry out their mission.”
The law that requires notification passed on a bipartisan basis in December 2022 in response to Trump sidelining IGs in 2020. The pair called it a matter of public and congressional accountability.
“IGs are critical to rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct within the Executive Branch bureaucracy, which you have publicly made clear you are also intent on doing,” Grassley and Durbin wrote.
The fired IGs were in charge of conducting investigations at key departments including Defense, State, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and the VA. They are tasked with exposing everything from illegal activity to everyday shortcomings by department employees.
Grassley and Durbin are asking Trump to quickly nominate qualified and non-partisan replacements.
