Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
Citizens in Name Only: What the Supreme Court Can’t Fix

Citizens in Name Only: What the Supreme Court Can’t Fix

U.S. Vice President JD Vance

The Feigned Confusion of JD Vance: Erasure by Design

The American Experiment at the Brink Due To Minority Rule

The American Experiment at the Brink Due To Minority Rule

Grassley steps up to Trump with new bill protecting inspectors general

Inspectors General

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, announced that he will introduce legislation on Thursday to boost protections for the network of inspectors general which identify wrongdoing within federal agencies.

Pool/Getty Images
Bill Theobald
By Bill TheobaldJun 18, 2020
Bill Theobald

Bill Theobald is senior writer at The Fulcrum, where he focuses on everything to do with voting. This December marks his 40th anniversary in the business, and he still believes -- now more than ever -- that the glow from great journalism can truly light the world.

See More Writings by author

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, a longtime champion of government oversight, plans to introduce legislation Thursday to strengthen the inspectors general system in the wake of several firings by President Trump.

While Grassley is usually supportive of Trump's positions, he had become increasingly dissatisfied with the president's removal of IGs, putting a hold on several presidential nominations to force the administration to provide more detailed explanations for the dismissals.

Congress in 1978 created the inspectors general system, in which each federal agency has an internal watchdog looking for wasteful spending and employee misconduct. It has gradually grown to more than 70 IGs.

Grassley, who announced his plans in a Washington Post op-ed, noted that the most recent update to the law governing inspectors general was approved in 2008 and requires the president to provide Congress with advance notice of the firing of an inspector general along with reasoning for the dismissal.

Trump has fired several IGs in recent months, criticized others and attempted to undermine the oversight components included in massive spending legislation passed to help offset the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Two of the most notable firings occurred in April and May. First Trump fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, because he forwarded the whistleblower's complaint that led to Trump's impeachment earlier this year.

Then Steve Linick, the State Department's IG, was fired while investigating the conduct of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

President Barack Obama also violated removal requirements, Grassley wrote, in his firing of the AmeriCorp inspector general without providing an explanation.

Grassley said his new legislation will beef up the mandate that the notification of firing by the president include a "substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons."

His legislation also attempts to address concerns that Trump has named unqualified candidates as temporary inspectors general by requiring that acting IGs be selected from the senior ranks within the watchdog community.

Grassley also hopes to safeguard ongoing investigations during the transition in inspectors general.

"It's really this simple: If inspectors general are doing good work, they should stay; if not, they should go. If the president is going to remove an inspector general, there'd better be a good reason," Grassley wrote.

Grassley has served in the Senate since 1981. He represents Iowa, where recent polling shows Trump in a dead heat with former Vice President Joe Biden.


Latest news

A stage on the national mall with a crowd of people before it.
Ethics & Leadership

America’s Birthday Is Not a Trump Rally

Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
Ethics & Leadership

Only Trump doesn’t care about housing

A miniature residence of the President of the United States, the White House, against the backdrop of 100 US dollar bills.
Economy

Trump’s State Capitalism Marks a Radical Break in U.S. Policy

Read More

July 4th and the American Faith We’ve Watched Slip Away

Kids and families celebrate the US Bicentennial near the New York Harbor in Lower Manhattan. Taken on July 4, 1976 in New York City, New York.

(Photo by David Attie/Getty Images.)

July 4th and the American Faith We’ve Watched Slip Away

I was a girl in Philadelphia in the summer when America turned 200. The birthplace of America was electric in a way I've never forgotten — crowds stretching from the art museum steps down to the Delaware River, each city block corded off for parades, cookouts, celebrations, and the kind of noise that felt like belonging.

It was also, I know now, a particular kind of American moment — one that required something beyond good weather and a long weekend. It required a belief that the country and its highest office still belonged to all of us.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protestors holding flags that read, "Trump 2020," and recording on their phones inside the U.S. Capitol.

A pro-Trump mob enters the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

MAGA’s Get Out of Jail Free Card

We have never lived through a better era to be a criminal, provided your political fealty is directed toward the right person. If you are an executive facing fraud charges or a perpetrator of violent offenses, the standard calculations of the penal code may no longer apply as long as you support Donald Trump. If you’re Team Trump, the machinery of the state will actively dismantle itself to protect you. If not, good luck to you.

The Trump regime’s message is now unmistakable: rules do not apply to MAGA. Consider the recent saga of the U.S. Army pilots who took two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters on an unauthorized detour to perform a low-altitude flyby of washed-up rocker and MAGA ally Kid Rock’s Nashville home. As a former military helicopter pilot and aircraft commander, let me be clear: this is exactly the kind of stunt we are taught never to do. If I had pulled something like that, there would have been legitimate grounds to take my wings away. Instead, when the Army suspended the crew pending a standard safety and regulatory review, as is the proper procedure, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth intervened personally, bypassing standard military discipline to announce on X: “Thank you @KidRock. @USArmy pilots suspension LIFTED. No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots.” Their rule breaking was catalogued as patriotic.

Keep ReadingShow less
Rioters breach Capitol security Jan. 6
Rioters breach Capitol security Jan. 6
Win McNamee/Getty Images

Trump’s 1776 Slush Fund Shows a New Level of Executive Abuse

Beyond the brazen venality and disdain for the other branches of government, Trump’s attempted sham IRS lawsuit settlement and $1.776 billion slush fund raise the prospect of a new and frightening danger. That is the use of funds from the government to support and incentivize the same people who attacked our government on January 6 to do it again, as new elections loom, only now as well-funded, better- armed, paramilitary-like mobs.

Fortunately, one district court has temporarily enjoined the establishment of the settlement slush fund, and another is demanding explanations from the administration. The Acting Attorney General says the President is abandoning the slush fund, but as of this writing, nothing is in place to confirm its formal abandonment or to ensure that something like it will not resurface. No matter what happens, the fact that a President and his enablers have created this danger would, in more ordinary times, be grounds for impeachment. It should be an alarm bell for continual vigilance.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026