Republican senators and at least one legal analyst have dismissed complaints from liberals that Donald Trump fired a dozen or more inspectors general in accordance with his prerogative as president.
On Friday, President Trump fired at least 12 such inspectors general, stating that doing so was “standard” procedure for incoming administrations.
“We’re cleaning house of what doesn’t work for us and going forward,” a senior White House official told MSNBC.
Inspectors general have the responsibility of conducting audits and other oversight measures to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in various federal agencies. According to the website for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency: “The President nominates IGs at Cabinet-level departments and major agencies with Senate confirmation. These IGs can only be removed by the President. The agency heads appoint and can remove IGs at designated Federal entities.”
The website further adds that “both houses of Congress must be notified if an IG is removed by the President or an agency head,” though the statute notes that the notification must come no “later than 30 days before the removal.” That stipulation regarding congressional notification was added to the Inspector General Act in 2022.
‘The Inspectors General … are simple members of the executive branch agencies. Even if Congress attempts to place conditions on their removal, those conditions are unconstitutional.’
Liberals have since bewailed the so-called “Friday night massacre” of IGs.
“It’s a purge of independent watchdogs in the middle of the night. 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,” railed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“These firings are Donald Trump’s way of telling us he is terrified of accountability and is hostile to facts and to transparency,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) claimed on the floor of the Senate on Saturday.
Sen. Schumer further alleged that the firings were “possibly in violation of federal law,” likely because Trump apparently did not provide Congress with 30-days’ notice.
Former U.S. Department of the Interior Inspector General Mark Greenblatt, one of the IGs canned last week, called the mass firings “troubling” and hinted that Trump might take advantage of the vacancies and fill them with what MSNBC described as “loyalists.”
“What will President Trump do with these positions?” Greenblatt wondered to CNN. “Is he going to nominate watchdogs, or is he going to nominate lapdogs?”
Greenblatt further signaled a possible anti-Trump bias when he insisted the firings “should be sending off alarm bells,” even though inspectors general work at the pleasure of the president.
Greenblatt notably made no mention during the CNN interview that Trump received overwhelming support at the ballot box in November and enjoys some of his highest approval ratings ever across all racial groups, strong indicators that the American people want Trump to drain the swamp and implement his agenda.
Whatever Democrats and their allies in D.C. and in the media say, two key Republican senators seem to support Trump, saying that he can and should appoint his own people to these positions.
“These are Biden-appointed officials,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), an attorney, tweeted Saturday. “There’s nothing novel about replacing them with Trump appointees.”
“It’d be crazy *not* to do this.”
Lee’s colleague and fellow attorney Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) likewise told Fox News on Sunday the president has “a right to get in there who he wants.”
What’s more, John Yoo, a well-respected law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a longtime supporter of Trump, believes the president is on solid legal footing with the firings, despite the caterwauling on the left.
“President Trump is well within his power to remove members of the executive branch at will. In Seila Law v. CFPB (2020), the Supreme Court held that Congress could not protect officers of the United States from removal by the President. … In Seila Law, the Court said that the only officers that Congress might be able to protect are those that are members of multi-body commissions, like the FCC or the SEC,” Yoo said, according to Newsweek.
“The Inspectors General do not have that status; they are simple members of the executive branch agencies. Even if Congress attempts to place conditions on their removal, those conditions are unconstitutional. Any Inspector General that attempts to challenge their removal in court — they would still have to leave office and just sue for back pay — will be wasting their money in lawyers fees.”
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