Trump fires at least 21 inspectors general since taking office and proposes 23% cut to federal watchdog budgets

Details

On the night of January 24, 2025, within his first week in office, President Donald Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general across federal cabinet departments and agencies, including those at the Departments of Defense, State, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Transportation, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Interior, and Labor. The inspectors general — independent watchdogs who audit agency spending and investigate fraud, waste, and abuse — were notified via identical two-sentence emails from Sergio Gor, the director of presidential personnel, citing "changing priorities" as the reason for their dismissal. The late-night action was characterized as a "Friday night purge" by critics.

The firings did not comply with the Inspector General Act of 1978, which was amended in 2022 to require the president to provide Congress with 30 days' notice and a "substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons," before removing any Senate-confirmed inspector general. Neither notice nor rationale was provided. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One the day after the firings, Trump described the action as "standard" and "a very common thing to do".

According to an analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute, the administration has fired or forced out at least 21 inspectors general total since January 2025, and the most recent budget proposal would cut real IG funding by 23% between fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2031.

What Inspectors General Do

Federal inspectors general were established by the Inspector General Act of 1978, enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal to create independent watchdogs inside executive branch agencies. There are currently 72 federal IG offices that audit spending, investigate allegations of fraud, and issue public reports on waste and mismanagement. IGs are presidential appointees but are expected to operate nonpartisanly, and many serve across multiple administrations.

According to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), combined funding for federal IGs was $3.9 billion in 2025 — about 0.06% of federal spending. CIGIE's annual reports state that the IG community identified $65 billion in potential savings in 2025 and $71 billion in 2024, a substantial return on investment relative to operating costs.

Scope of the Firings

The January 24 firings targeted IGs at all but two of the cabinet departments, including many who had been appointed during Trump's first term. Those removed included:

• Hannibal "Mike" Ware — IG for the Small Business Administration and chair of CIGIE
• Mark Greenblatt — IG for the Department of the Interior (appointed during Trump's first term)
• Michael J. Missal — IG for Veterans Affairs
• Christi Grimm — IG for Health and Human Services
• Cardell Richardson Sr. — IG for the State Department
• Phyllis Fong — IG for the Department of Agriculture, who was at the time conducting an investigation into Elon Musk's company Neuralink over the alleged mistreatment of test monkeys

The Justice Department IG, Michael Horowitz, and the Department of Homeland Security IG were initially spared in the January round.

Additional firings followed in subsequent months:

• USAID IG Paul K. Martin — Fired on February 11, 2025, one day after his office released a report warning that the administration's dismantling of USAID had put $489 million in food assistance at risk of spoilage and degraded the agency's ability to vet humanitarian awards for terrorist links
• Department of Education IG and Export-Import Bank IG — Replaced or forced out over the course of 2025, as documented by Government Executive

Court Ruling

On September 24, 2025, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes of the D.C. District Court ruled that Trump had violated the Inspector General Act when he fired the 17 IGs without notice. In her opinion, she wrote that "President Trump violated the IGA. That much is obvious."

However, Reyes declined to reinstate the fired IGs, reasoning that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated "irreparable harm" because Trump could simply re-fire them after providing the required 30-day notice. She also noted that the president could place IGs on non-duty status immediately after reinstatement, "rendering them functionally unemployed."

Reyes acknowledged concerns about watchdog independence, writing that IG effectiveness "depends on their ability to operate free from political pressure or retaliation" and that "firing IGs without providing Congress any notice or explanation encroaches on this independence," raising "the risk of appearing retaliatory, which can chill the IGs' investigative work."

The eight plaintiffs in the lawsuit — from the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, HHS, State, Energy, Agriculture, Labor, and the Small Business Administration — have stayed the case pending a Supreme Court ruling on Trump's removal of a Federal Trade Commissioner, which Reyes said could affect the IG litigation.

Vacancies and Replacements

As of the Cato Institute's April 2026 analysis, 28 of the 72 IG positions were vacant, with 22 of those vacancies lasting more than a year. Notable long-standing vacancies include:

• Social Security Administration — No IG for roughly 18 months, despite overseeing $1.8 trillion in annual spending including large and fraud-prone disability programs
• Department of the Treasury — No IG for more than six years

As of October 21, 2025, only six nominees had been put forward for the 28 vacant IG positions, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The CBPP noted that some of the nominees had "impartiality and credibility" questioned, including a Republican former state representative accused of violating ethics law and a Republican state official who had been forced to resign for mishandling taxpayer funds.

In August 2025, the Senate confirmed Cheryl Mason as the permanent IG for the Department of Veterans Affairs, replacing Michael Missal. Most other affected offices continue to operate under acting IGs.

Proposed Budget Cuts

The Trump administration's fiscal year 2027 budget proposal would cut real IG spending by 23% between fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2031, according to Cato's estimates. An analysis by the Partnership for Public Service's Center for Presidential Transition found the president's budget would reduce cabinet department IG appropriations by an average of 12% relative to 2024 levels, with some facing cuts of nearly 30%. Projected staffing reductions would leave OIG offices nearly 20% smaller than when the administration began, with the Department of Justice OIG alone projected to lose over 140 employees.

Specific agency-level budget reductions in the FY 2026 proposal included:

• Department of Justice OIG — 30% cut
• National Science Foundation OIG — 26% cut
• Department of Agriculture OIG — 10% cut
• Department of Defense OIG — 7% cut
• Department of Housing and Urban Development OIG — 6.5% cut

Cato notes that the Departments of Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security received large spending increases in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which would typically require additional auditor capacity to investigate improper payments, not less.

Congressional Response

Republican concerns: Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), long considered a congressional ally of IGs, stated: "There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so. 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."

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters she did not understand "why one would fire individuals whose mission is to root out waste, fraud and abuse," noting this "leaves a gap in what I know is a priority for President Trump."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said Republicans were not given any heads-up or explanation for the firings.

Democratic opposition: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor that Trump had fired the IGs "in the dark of night." Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, described the action as a "Friday night coup" that undermines public trust in government institutions.

Fired IG Responses

Mark Greenblatt, Trump's first-term appointee as Interior Department IG, told CBS News he was "stunned" by his dismissal. Asked why Trump fired him, he responded: "The most charitable interpretation is that he doesn't believe in our independence or our fairness. The least charitable interpretation is that he wants lackeys to rubber stamp what he's trying to do."

Hannibal "Mike" Ware, the fired SBA IG and CIGIE chair, wrote in a letter to a White House personnel official that the administration's actions were not "legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General." In a separate statement, Ware acknowledged that "IGs are not immune from removal" but said "the law must be followed to protect independent government oversight."

Context: The Administration's "War on Fraud"

The firings and proposed budget cuts come as the Trump administration has simultaneously declared a "war on fraud", particularly in welfare and health care programs. Cato's Dominik Lett and Chris Edwards argue that "the anti-fraud war would seem to be undermined by the administration's own weakening of the IG system," noting that the Social Security Administration's IG office is "particularly undersized" despite recent testimony describing major threats including "looting by sophisticated transnational crime gangs."

In the spring of 2026, Vice President JD Vance — co-chair of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud established by executive order in March 2026 — began publicly promoting the effort's results. At a May 2026 White House event, Vance said the task force had recovered or blocked roughly $160 billion. That total included $22.2 billion in suspected pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) payments — some 562,000 loans referred to the Treasury for collection — plus $135 billion in COVID-era funds, $1.3 billion in deferred Medicaid reimbursements, $6.3 billion in suspected fraudulent contracts, and $60 million in student aid. The administration attributed much of the recovered spending to the Biden administration, which it said had flagged the loans for suspected fraud but never sent them to Treasury for collection.

The underlying PPP and EIDL fraud, however, originated in 2020–2021, when both programs were created and administered under the first Trump administration and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The SBA Office of Inspector General estimated that at least $200 billion — roughly 17% of the $1.2 trillion disbursed — was potentially fraudulent, and its reporting traced much of the exposure to loan-approval controls that were relaxed as the programs rushed money out the door.

The inspector general whose office produced that $200 billion estimate was Hannibal "Mike" Ware, the SBA IG named above as one of the officials Trump fired on January 24, 2025. The administration's anti-fraud messaging thus centers on programs that incurred their losses under weakened controls in 2020–2021, while the watchdog office that quantified that fraud is among those whose leadership was removed and whose funding faces proposed cuts.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that IG firings have occurred alongside the removal of the director of the Office of Government Ethics and the head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal whistleblowers — suggesting a broader pattern of weakening independent oversight mechanisms.

Historical Context

The last comparable wholesale removal of IGs occurred under President Ronald Reagan, who dismissed all sitting IGs in 1981 — a move that was controversial at the time and, according to a Congressional Research Service report, caused "practice" to subsequently "disfavor removal of IGs during presidential transitions."

During Trump's first term, he fired five inspectors general or acting IGs in 2020, which then-Senator Mitt Romney called "a threat to accountable democracy and a fissure in the constitutional balance of power." Congress subsequently enacted the 2022 amendment requiring 30-day notice and substantive rationale — protections the 2025 firings bypassed.