Eight federal watchdogs, abruptly fired last month by President Donald Trump, are suing to get their jobs back, saying Trump broke the law by failing to give Congress a 30-day heads up and concrete explanation for the dismissals.
Trump sent a jolt through Washington when he fired 17 inspectors general on the first Friday night of his term, presaging weeks of extraordinary assertions of power that have at times crossed clear legal boundaries.
A 2022 federal law requires Trump to notify Congress 30 days before he terminates an inspector general and to provide detailed reasons. Trump has bristled at constraints on his authority to manage the executive branch, embracing the most muscular version of presidential power and daring the courts to keep him in check.
The ex-watchdogs — including former inspectors general from the Pentagon, the Departments of State, Education, Labor, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services, as well as the Small Business Administration — say a federal court should reinstate them and force Trump to abide by the 2022 law, or perhaps retain them altogether. Two of them, former Pentagon IG Robert Storch and former Small Business Administration IG Michael Ware, were originally appointed to their roles by Trump in his first presidential term.
The group, represented by former deputy attorney general David Ogden and former solicitor general Seth Waxman, is seeking an injunction to undo firings and asking the federal court in Washington, D.C. for expedited consideration.
“The firing of the independent nonpartisan inspectors general was a clear violation of the law,” said Michael Missal, who Trump removed as the top watchdog for the Department of Veterans Affairs. “The IGs are bringing this action for reinstatement so that they can go back to work fighting fraud, waste and abuse on behalf of the American people.”
All of the inspectors general say they were notified of their termination by Trump appointees but never directly communicated with Trump himself. Soon after, according to the lawsuit, “agency employees cut off each plaintiff’s access to government systems, collected each one’s assigned government equipment — computers, phones and access badges — and arranged for plaintiffs to collect personal belongings from government buildings under supervision.”
The lawsuit comes just hours after Trump fired yet another watchdog — USAID Inspector General Paul Martin — shortly after he reported that Trump’s bid to dismantle the agency risked wasting nearly $500 million in undelivered food aid. Martin was not included in the initial lawsuit, though advocates expect the complaint to be updated over time.
Inspectors general were a post-Watergate creation, meant to provide an internal, independent check on executive branch waste, fraud and abuse. They’re nominated by presidents and confirmed by the Senate, and they’re often tasked with complex audits of government programs and reviews of politically sensitive controversies. That mission at times produces an uneasy balance between the watchdogs — who technically work for the administration — and the agencies they monitor.
The IGs are not the only Trump administration officials fighting to undo Trump’s decision to fire them. A member of the National Labor Relations Board is suing to return to her position, and a different government watchdog, Hampton Dellinger, won a court ruling temporarily reinstating him atop the Office of Special Counsel.
