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By Mark Lee Greenblatt
Expert on Government Ethics and Compliance, an Attorney and Author
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The emails arrived on a Friday night one year ago, January 24, 2025. Seventeen inspectors general across the federal government—including me—received notifications from the White House. We were fired, effective immediately. No explanation. No 30-day notice to Congress as required by law. Just a cursory message citing “changing priorities.” It was an unprecedented purge quickly dubbed the “Friday Night Massacre.”
One year later, the damage to government oversight and accountability is worse than Americans realize. The inspector general system, which has protected taxpayer dollars and rooted out corruption for nearly 50 years, is being dismantled. What has replaced it should alarm anyone who values the rule of law.
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Inspectors general were created in 1978 in the wake of President Richard Nixon’s Watergate abuses. Congress established these independent watchdogs to serve as the eyes and ears of the American people inside federal agencies. Their role was simple but crucial: conduct fair and objective oversight to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in the federal government.
These watchdogs were intentionally designed to be apolitical stewards of the public trust, serving across administrations regardless of party. For decades, inspectors general have delivered billions in savings, exposed scandals, protected whistleblowers and helped government work more efficiently. Their work is technical, nonpartisan, independent and essential to a functioning democracy.
The crux of the entire system is independence. Inspectors general have served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, holding officials accountable across party lines and improving federal programs for all Americans. But the system works only if IGs can operate without fear of political influence and retaliation.
The past year has shown what happens when independence erodes. Since the Friday Night Massacre, the Trump administration has removed more IGs simply for doing their job and appointed a series of IGs with troubling backgrounds.
Consider Thomas March Bell, confirmed as IG at the Department of Health and Human Services. Not only does Bell have extensive partisan experience, he pledged to “examine, evaluate, audit and investigate to support the initiatives of President Trump and Secretary Kennedy.” Using the IG position to advance the president’s policy agenda is the opposite of independence. How can Americans trust his findings will be driven solely by evidence? Instead, we must wonder whether his reports will be shaped to “support” the White House. That is partisanship masquerading as oversight.
Bell is not an outlier. Six of the eight inspectors general confirmed previously worked in Trump’s first or second administration, often at the very agencies they now oversee. That creates an obvious conflict of interest and raises a troubling question: Are these officials working for taxpayers or the administration they just left? These are not the independent professionals Congress envisioned in 1978.
The assault on oversight continued when the administration defunded the inspectors general council, the coordinating body that supports all 72 federal IGs. Although the White House restored some funding after bipartisan pressure, the cumulative message was unmistakable: Independent oversight is unwelcome.
Some may argue that administrations have always clashed with watchdogs. But this is different. The attacks on IGs represent a fundamental transformation of oversight itself.
The stakes are high. Take the Department of Labor, where Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is currently under investigation by the Office of Inspector General over alleged ethical misconduct. The White House responded by stating that the president “stands by the secretary.” It’s worrisome that the newly installed inspector general overseeing the investigation is Anthony D’Esposito, a scandal-plagued former Republican congressman who was Chavez-DeRemer’s colleague in Congress, and according to The Washington Post “considers her a friend.” D’Esposito will reportedly run for Congress again, meaning he will have a vested interest in securing White House support. Even if the investigation is conducted properly, the optics alone will undermine public confidence.
Perhaps in response to the new troubling IGs, Democratic senators introduced the Inspector General’s Independence Act to bar presidents from appointing current or former political appointees as IGs in agencies they previously served. The proposal reflects a legitimate attempt to avoid partisan IGs, but it is not a cure-all. It could be overinclusive, in that effective inspectors general can come from varied backgrounds, including those with some political experience. Some of the strongest IGs in history did. On the flip side, it could be under inclusive as partisan IGs may not have served in a president’s administration, such as D’Esposito. The issue is not political service. It is whether an IG will faithfully enforce the law and protect the public interest rather than the interests of the person who appointed them.
One year after that Friday Night Massacre, I remain proud of inspectors general and hopeful this institution can survive. But survival is not guaranteed. It will require vigilance from Congress, courage from current inspectors general and engagement from the American people. The IG system was born from a crisis of accountability. If we allow it to be dismantled through political gamesmanship, we risk repeating the very abuses that led to its creation. That is a price our democracy cannot afford.
Mark Lee Greenblatt is a former inspector general of the U.S. Department of the Interior and chair of the Council of Inspectors General, as well as the author of Valor: Unsung Heroes from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front (Rowman & Littlefield).
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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