Inspectors general are on pins and needles with the arrival of the Trump administration
"Having spoken to many of my former colleagues, I think folks are generally a little perplexed," former State Dept. acting IG Diana Shaw said.
Federal executives are nervous about what comes next. President Donald Trump has taken a new and unprecedented approach to not just the senior executive service but to all of federal management. What about inspectors general? Trump had a contentious relationship with them the first time around. Diana Shaw has experience here: She’s a former State Department acting inspector general who witnessed the firing of her boss. Now a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein, Diana Shaw joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin And let’s begin with your circumstance in Trump 45. What happened? And let’s get into the aftermath.
Diana Shaw That’s right. I had just joined State OIG, the Office of Inspector General. There I was five days on the job, my first week at work, and President Trump fired IG Steve Linnick on that Friday. And so that is how I became the acting inspector general there. And so I lived through the aftermath of that firing and saw what it did to the agency and how the agency had to make adjustments under the circumstances.
Tom Temin And you were acting for how long thereafter?
Diana Shaw About four years.
Tom Temin So the duration of the rest of the Trump administration.
Diana Shaw Duration of the Trump administration and a good part of the Biden administration as well.
Tom Temin And so let’s talk about the apparent effect on the staff and on the IG that’s gone. It must be pretty tough.
Diana Shaw Certainly, because it is not common for inspectors general to change with an administration. This is, to some extent unexpected and unprecedented. Changes in the law after the last Trump administration would have provided a 30 day lead time. There was supposed to be, under the law, a 30 day congressional notice. So this comes somewhat unexpectedly. And so I’m sure the IGs who received notice on Friday night are trying to process that the speed with which that happened. And then, of course, the workforce coming into the office today have a lot to deal with, including trying to understand who is leading their agency and what that means for their work going forward.
Tom Temin Right. As you say, this is not a staff that is accustomed in general to having leadership change with a new political appointee, with a change of administration. If you’re, say, the head of the Diplomatic Corps or something as a career, you know what’s going to happen. Not so for the IG staffs.
Diana Shaw That’s right. Many IG staffs have had the same inspector general for in some cases decades. And so this sort of leadership turnover is very unusual in some cases. And so I would imagine some of the OIG staffers are dealing with a new circumstance that they’ve never had to deal with before.
Tom Temin And what about the ongoing work, the reports, the investigations, the audits that are continuing, that are happening already in that office?
Diana Shaw Well, I can tell you from personal experience, the OIG workforce is a very committed-to-mission workforce. So that work will continue. But as you can expect, with any kind of leadership change like this, things will take a beat as they let the dust settle. We need to see who the new leadership is and what focus that leadership will want to take. It’s not uncommon for new leadership to come in and want to sort of get the lay of the land to understand what work is ongoing. And so sometimes that can result in a pause or a slight delay in work. But it is also the case that sometimes leaders want to move the priorities in a different direction. And so you can see over time shifts in the type of work and the focus of that work over time.
Tom Temin But the inspectors general are responsible for their own audit and investigation agenda in a given year. They devise their own plans. And those plans, to my knowledge, don’t come from the secretary.
Diana Shaw That’s correct. They’re meant to be independently determined. But an IG can choose to stop work if he or she chooses to. Now, that would probably be scrutinized because it’s not very common for a job to just stop in the middle. But it does happen from time to time and usually there’s some rationale for that. But we’ll have to see.
Tom Temin We’re speaking with Diana Shaw. She’s a partner at Wiley Rein and former State Department acting inspector general. And what’s your view of the legality? I mean, there’s a technical requirement in the law for dismissing an inspector general. I think there’s a 30 day notice period to Congress and there should be some rationale for it. None of that seems to have happened this time.
Diana Shaw That’s right. It’s interesting. After the last Trump administration, the IG Act was amended to require a 30 day notice to Congress. Not only a notice, but in any event of a firing, the law requires that the President provide substantial rationale and case specific reasons for the firing of each IG. Now that law has never been tested. And so this is an interesting moment where we’ll see whether that law stands up.
Tom Temin Wow. And just by the way, since you were acting inspector general and continued to the end of the Trump administration, what was daily life as an IG or acting IG under Trump? I mean, was there calls from the White House, do this, do that? Or was it pretty normal after that firing of Linnick?
Diana Shaw Well, just to put it in context, we were also in the midst of a pandemic. So I can’t say that anything at that moment was normal. But I was fortunate to have a good professional working relationship with leadership at the department under both administrations, and we continued to do the hard work. I will say that if you are doing the work of an IG correctly, you’re going to have awkward moments with leadership because your job is to point out where there may be issues. And so you just have to work through that. But I always tried to do that professionally, and I was fortunate to have professional engagements on both sides.
Tom Temin And it’s interesting in this case because many of the IGs let go were Trump appointees from that first time around and lots of people, the few left in place, most of them were Democratically appointed by either President Biden or President Obama. And one of the ones in place is the inspector general at [the Department of] Homeland Security, who has been investigated by [the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency] himself for misconduct; still in place. So I don’t know. Can you comment on the pattern here? It’s kind of hard to decipher.
Diana Shaw It is hard to decipher, I think. Having spoken to many of my former colleagues, I think folks are generally a little perplexed. It does seem as though most of the cabinet level IGs, regardless of who appointed them, have been removed. And so to me that signals a desire to come up with a clean slate. Among those, a couple, as you’ve noted, have been kept on. And I assume the President has specific reasons for that. But then there also have been a smattering of others as well, some who are President Trump’s former appointees or nominees and some from the Biden administration. So there are some puzzling choices there. And I guess we’ll just have to wait until the president chooses to explain.
Tom Temin And we are talking to an attorney — but as an attorney, this may not be your specialty — but there is talk of possibly a lawsuit or some kind of a class lawsuit or group lawsuit among the inspectors general. Good idea? Or maybe just let this lie and let Congress deal with this and go on with your life?
Diana Shaw Well, obviously, I have to leave it to each of my former colleagues to decide what is the best course of action for them. I do think that, of course, the notice to Congress, at the time that that was passed, everybody felt that that was an important safeguard. And so the question, though, is what is the ultimate outcome in the end if the notice is provided? It is ultimately the prerogative of the President to remove a presidentially-appointed IG. So the question is just what is the outcome after all of this? And I just don’t know. So, again, it’s a really tough call for each of these guys to have to make under very tough circumstances.
Tom Temin And under a practical look at it, this is Washington and nobody’s going to go without work.
Diana Shaw Well, we’ll see. I mean, we’ll see. That’s a lot of IGs suddenly hitting the pavement looking for work.
Tom Temin Well, maybe all the law firm heads can get together and divvy them up like cards in a deck.
Diana Shaw I have to say, though, these are some of the most talented and committed individuals indeed to work with. It’s an incredible group of people, so I have every confidence that they’ll land on their feet.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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