Trump Stages Friday Night Coup And Fires Federal Watchdogs That Monitor Corruption
A convicted felon president violates federal law and sets the stage for massive corruption in his administration.
The Daily is a citizen-written alternative to the mainstream media committed to democracy, freedom, good government, and the issues that matter to you. Please join our community and support us by becoming a subscriber.
Trump Fires Senate Confirmed IGs
The year was 1978, and then President Jimmy Carter signed the kind of law that not many people think much about. Carter signed the Inspector General Act which created the first 12 Inspector Generals to independently oversee federal agencies and monitor for waste, fraud, and abuse.
The number of IGs had grown to over 70. They monitored every area of the federal government. The Senate confirms them, and by law, a president is required to notify the Senate 30 days before he fires any of them.
The IGs were a check put in place to root out corruption, and they did a good job on the whole, which is why may of them were fired by Donald Trump.
In a move that has been signaled to have been coming for months, Trump fired the Inspectors General of 12 key federal agencies, including 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.
“It’s a widespread massacre,” said one of the fired inspectors general. “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.”
The emails informing the watchdogs of their dismissals rippled across the agencies Friday. 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.”
There was no distinction made for partisanship.
Trump fired IGs that he appointed during his first term and those appointed by other presidents.
The point appears to be to gut the system of internal agency oversight.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Daily with Sarah Jones to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.