The Trump administration will have to deal with vacancies in the ranks of inspectors general. The last time around the Trump White House had sort of a touchy relationship with some of them. Here on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with one view of what should happen next the director of the effective and accountable government program at the Project on Government Oversight, Faith Williams.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin All right. What should happen with inspectors general? Because this is just an ongoing topic, I think, with every administration.

Faith Williams It is. The Trump administration is not necessarily unique in our concerns about the independence and accountability of inspectors general. So one thing to note is, back in the first Trump administration, Trump fired five inspectors general. He did it at like 5:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, the classic Friday news dump. And nothing like that had happened since President Reagan all the way back in 1980 when President Reagan comes in asks all presidential appointees to resign, including inspectors general. There was a big outcry from Congress and he ultimately hired, I think, five of them back. So that sort of sets the stage then. Fast forward 2020 in the first Trump administration, president, I believe it was 2020, though President Trump fires five inspectors general. And so POGO and other organizations get to work on strengthening the rules and protections around removing inspectors general. The progress has been made is better than it was. The protections are stronger, but it is still really easy for the president to remove an inspector general for just about any reason that they want. So there is a real concern that when President Trump takes office again, he will remove inspectors general. If not wholesale, then many at a time with abandon for not necessarily great reasons. So that’s our concern.

Tom Temin Inspectors general do report to the president and to the agency head. They’ve kind of had a dual hat or a dual reporting split relationship. And that’s been one of the challenges I think, right for inspectors general, is that they are presidentially appointed. So I guess the question is, how are they different from any other appointee in that they serve at the pleasure of the president?

Faith Williams Sure. And I think that’s a great constitutional like sticky wicket right there. Is that they do serve at the pleasure of the president. There are some constitutional concerns about making it even harder to remove inspectors general. But the fact remains is that these folks are absolutely critical to uncovering waste, fraud and abuse in government. And so it is really important that presidents let them do their jobs. And ultimately, when it becomes clear that an inspector general is not doing their job, it is important for a president to remove them. And we see that with Inspector General Cuffari over at the Department of Homeland Security. So we’re not saying, hey, never get rid of an inspector general. We are saying that there needs to be a really good reason when a president goes to remove them. But you’re right that the president, they serve at the pleasure of the president at the end of the day. So that is challenging.

Tom Temin And POGO has been kind of picking at this Cuffari issue for a long time now. And it comes and goes in the rest of media and so forth. What’s the current status with him? What are the issues?

Faith Williams Yeah, great question. So the CIGIE, which is the the body that helps hold inspectors general accountable, released at long last a report on Inspector General Cuffari earlier this fall. It had been in the works for two years. And the report goes to the president in this case, of course, President Biden. And it encouraged President Biden to take steps up to and including removal. That’s a big deal. So the investigations are, typically we find that presidents are relatively responsive to those. But what we’ve seen is still no movement on IG Cuffari. So despite the many issues that POGO has long talked about that POGO hasn’t covered, the different members of Congress have been covered. And despite the CIGIE report finally coming out, Inspector General Cuffari is still at the Department of Homeland Security.

Tom Temin We are speaking with Faith Williams. She’s director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the Project on Government Oversight. And looking at potential Trump appointees. And this whole issue of he can be mercurial with people that he appoints and they come and go sometimes, or at least that’s what they did in the first administration. Inspectors general look at the operations of agencies, but they’re not really policymakers. And don’t they investigate, in some cases, some instances, the performance of the agency per the policy that the White House might have set through the secretary?

Faith Williams Absolutely. And that independence is key. I think as part of the American public, we deserve the agencies that are fulfilling their mission where fraud is not occurring, where corruption is not occurring. And IG’s help hold agencies and their work accountable. And I will say that one kind of nuance that exists within inspectors general are rules about who can be nominated to be an inspector general. The idea is that they have qualifications in the fields that IGs need to do their job. So things like audit background or investigatory background, the president or an agency. There are some limitations on who they can nominate to be an inspector general, for example, having an audit background or an investigatory background. So there are some limitations as to who can fill the role of inspectors general.

Tom Temin All right. And the CIGIE, you mentioned that they have been effective in the sense of other IGs and administrators and presidents listening to them. What should they do to make sure that great appointees get appointed and that the ones that are pretty good stay in their jobs through the next transition to the next administration.

Faith Williams Well, there’s only honestly so much CIGIE can do. So you can’t do much to ensure anything. Because ultimately these inspector general, these inspectors general serve at the pleasure of the president. But, CIGIE for the last few years, I think since 2022, reforms were passed where CIGIE helps recommend candidates for IG vacancies. And that’s generally a good thing. It doesn’t mean the President needs to listen or take that into consideration, but I think having a pool of qualified candidates is never a bad way to jumpstart the process. I also think CIGIE continuing to investigate where there are issues is really important, too. We talk a lot about the independence of inspector general, but they also need to be accountable. Inspectors general are not inherently any more perfect than any other people. And so it is really important that there mechanisms in place to report when there is like a bad inspector general, and what do I mean by bad, someone who is corrupt or who is retaliating against whistleblowers or isn’t investigating the important issues, you name it. So that mechanism is really important. And CIGIE has faced a lot of backlash from some members of Congress because of the the IG Cuffari investigation, because some folks felt that it was more of a political investigation. Not to put words in other people’s mouths, but that’s been my interpretation is that some folks felt that CIGIE was going after IG Cuffari because he was a Trump appointee and now we’re in the Biden administration. But the truth is CIGIE, that is not why CIGIE was investigating Inspector General Cuffari. There are real issues there. And so it’s really important that CIGIE continues that work. And in fact, they put out a really great guide a month or two ago on presidential transitions and just the importance of, say, the transition team meeting with existing inspectors general so that the transition team knows kind of big management concerns or big problems that they’re working on. So there’s so many ways that CIGIE has been helpful and inspectors general have this role to play in the transition as well.

Tom Temin And it’s important for every agency to have one, because the vacancy issue has been dragging on for years and years, decades.

        Read more: Agency Oversight

Faith Williams Correct. It’s really important. At the moment, there are 11 vacancies. One is very fresh, but the oldest one is years long. The majority of them, I want to say, of these 11, I have it over my career. Eight or nine require presidential nomination. The remaining require an agency head nomination. But we really need nominations. And so there are 11 vacancies, some of which have nominations at various stages in the Senate. Two of those folks are ready for floor votes. We’ve encouraged the leaders in the Senate to hold for votes on them. But there are others that don’t even have nominations. So it’s really like a whole mix. And so that will continue regardless of administration. POGO wants these vacancies filled. And so just like we’ve encourage President Biden to fill these vacancies, will certainly encourage President Trump to fill these vacancies.

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