Trump Fired the Watchdogs. Their Replacements Have a Different Mission.

President Trump is installing his allies in the offices of inspector general, which are meant to provide independent government oversight.

One federal inspector general, a former Republican congressman, has spent recent weeks lavishing praise on President Trump while attacking the president’s rival, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California.

Another inspector general appointed by Mr. Trump has recently singled out Attorney General Letitia James of New York, one of the president’s most hated targets, as the Trump administration withheld funds for her state.

And Mr. Trump has inserted a right-wing operative — a co-author of the conservative Project 2025 document — to take over the inspector general’s office that would be in charge of any internal investigation into his botched repairs of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

During the first year of Mr. Trump’s second term, his approach to dealing with federal inspectors general, who are supposed to be apolitical, was to fire them and slash funding for their offices. But since the mass firings, the president has appointed some government watchdogs with overtly political backgrounds. And they have directed their investigations toward allegations of fraud at the state level, instead of targeting the agencies within the administration that they are supposed to scrutinize.

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By:  Luke Broadwater
Source: The New York Times

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