The White House fired 18 inspectors general (IG) on Friday afternoon, concluding a virtuoso week of mostly beneficial changes on a relatively sour note. A brief email said the internal watchdogs in numerous executive branch departments — some of whom were appointed by Trump himself during his previous administration — were immediately terminated “due to changing priorities.” Yet the way the firings were handled has even Republican senators asking questions.

Who Did Trump Fire?

The firings represent fully half of the 36 federal IG positions that require Senate confirmation. The IGs monitoring the Departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, Treasury, and Agriculture were ousted, as well as those in the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration.

Two other IGs, CIA IG Robin Ashton and Intelligence Community IG Thomas Monheim, announced their resignations in November after Trump’s victory.

Among the IGs for cabinet-level agencies, only those in the Department of Justice (an Obama appointee) and Department of Homeland Security were left at their post.

Reports conflict about who sent the termination emails. The New York Times reported that they were sent by Trent Morse, deputy director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. But The Washington Post said the emails came from Morse’s boss, White House personnel director Sergio Gor.

Why Did He Do So?

There was more agreement about the reason behind the purge: Trump’s desire to hit reset on Washington, so that America can spring forward into his promised “golden age.” Thus, one unnamed White House official told NBC News, “We’re cleaning house of what doesn’t work for us and going forward.” When asked, President Donald Trump himself replied, “I did it because it’s a very common thing to do. Some people thought that some were unfair or were not doing the job. It’s a very standard thing to do, very much like the U.S. attorneys.”

Trump was likely referring to the late President Ronald Reagan, who on his first day in office removed all 15 confirmed and acting IGs (he later reappointed five of them). Thus, when The Washington Post characterized Trump’s mass firing as an “unprecedented purge,” they were simply wrong.

More recently, the Congressional Research Service found seven examples of presidents removing or replacing IGs since 2009, including Obama (1), Trump (4), and Biden (2).

Where Is the Problem?

Unfortunately for President Trump, U.S. law establishing IG roles — first established post-Watergate in 1978 — have changed since 1981, with the latest changes coming in 2022, after Trump’s first term in office. Due to these changes, “The legal justification for the firings is murky,” as NBC News charitably put it. Their unnamed White House official was vague on the details but didn’t think the administration had broken the law because many such decisions happen with “legal counsel looking over them.”

At least one fired IG would differ with that assessment. Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) “Chairperson” Hannibal “Mike” Ware, who served as IG of the Small Business Administration and acting IG of the Social Security Administration, responded immediately to Gor by letter on Friday night.

“I recommend that you reach out to White House Counsel to discuss your intended course of action. At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General,” Ware warned. “IGs are not immune from removal. However, the law must be followed to protect independent government oversight for America.”

What Does the Law Say?

This brings us to the hinge question of the entire controversy: what does the law actually say? Two sections of U.S. Code include language from the Inspector General Act of 1978, amended multiple times since. An online copy of this code is published on the official U.S. House of Representatives website by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel (OLRC):

“An Inspector General may be removed from office by the President. The President shall communicate the reasons for any such removal to both Houses of Congress.” 5 U.S.C. App. 3(b)

“An Inspector General may be removed from office by the President. If an Inspector General is removed from office or is transferred to another position or location within an establishment, the President shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of Congress, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer.” 5 U.S.C. 403(b)

According to these provisions, the president may fire an inspector general but only after he (1) tells Congress and (2) explains the reasons why (3) at least 30 days before the removal. The Trump administration did none of these things.

According to OLRC, this version of U.S. Code is “current through Public Law 118-233 (01/04/2025), except for Public Law 118-159 [a large year-end spending measure].” However, this online version appears to lack amendments made in 2022. The Washington Stand has not yet received an answer to inquiries about the apparent discrepancy.

On December 23, 2022, the U.S. Congress enacted the “Securing Inspector General Independence Act of 2022” as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 7776), a bill that funded the military for Fiscal Year 2023. (This earmark was included in a rushed, Christmas-time bill, at the very end of the 117th Congress, the last time Democrats controlled both chambers.)

The Securing Inspector General Independence Act of 2022 amended the first provision quoted above, 5 U.S.C. App. 3(b), to read as follows:

“An Inspector General may be removed from office by the President. The President shall communicate the substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for any such removal to both Houses of Congress (including to the appropriate congressional committees).”

The additional language specifies two additional requirements for removing a duly appointed IG. First, the president must provide a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons.” Second, he must not only inform both houses of Congress, but also inform the appropriate committees. The Trump administration did not follow these provisions either.

If the Trump administration had fulfilled the earlier requirements, but not these later requirements, the incident could be chalked up to a case of poor legal counsel, with the lawyers consulting the unofficial website version. However, since the Trump administration followed neither version, it seems more likely that they did not consult the law at all.

Who Has Objected?

The abrupt firings obviously provoked objections from the terminated IGs themselves. “The biggest concern I have just going forward is the politicization of inspector general positions,” complained Mark Lee Greenblatt, the Interior Department IG whom the White House fired. “If a member of the Trump administration is accused of ethics, misconduct or some sort of criminal violation, will the IG be willing to investigate that in a fulsome and comprehensive manner? Will they be willing to come to findings, negative findings, about that Trump political appointee? That is the key question. That’s where the rubber meets the road.”

Obviously, Democrats in Congress objected as well. Democrats on the powerful House Appropriations Committee sent a joint letter condemning the move, while Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) accused Trump of a “plan to undermine the functioning of the government of the United States so that there’s is no objective person that can make judgments about propriety of his actions.”

But there was also murmuring among Republicans. “There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that, if so,” said Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who worked to enact the 2022 amendments. “I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress.”

How Does This Affect Rule of Law?

Other Republicans were less bothered by the Trump administration’s actions. In an interview on “Meet the Press,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) admitted that, “technically, yeah,” Trump had violated the Inspector General Act. But he argued that Trump “should have done that” and suggested Congress “just tell them you need to follow the law next time.”

“Our republic is meant to be ruled by law, not by a man or even a cluster of elites. Historically, we have been free of tyranny because of our foundation in the rule of law — once anchored to transcendent truth and natural law. As Paul writes in Romans chapter two, such truth is inscribed on human hearts,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “When a society rejects that transcendent truth, it follows whatever raw political power allows. Justice gets compromised, and freedom begins to slip away. Now is not the time to wield political power for its own sake; it is the time to use that power — within the boundaries of law — to restore the law itself.”

Perkins praised the Trump administration for undoing injustices of the Biden administration — for instance, by pardoning non-violent pro-life protestors — but warned against committing the same mistakes in the opposite direction.

“For the moment, praying grandmothers are safe in America again. But here is the sobering reality: if we fail to break this cycle and return our nation to a rule of law grounded in unchanging moral truth, another election could produce a government that treats intercession like a crime and regards standing for life as probable cause for arrest,” Perkins pleaded. “When people say our legal system is ‘two-tiered,’ it isn’t baseless. It reveals that justice is not blind; it’s largely determined by whoever occupies the Oval Office. That, by definition, is more like a monarchy than a republic.”

Some of the fired IGs plan to resist the irregular process by which they were terminated. For instance, State Department IG Cardell Richardson told staff he planned to show up to work on Monday anyways. Such wrangling could likely result in a prolonged court battle — one which the administration would probably lose — which could make it take even longer for Trump to install his desired replacements.