A group of eight federal inspectors general has sued the Trump administration after they were ousted from their jobs last month.
The IGs claim that their firings - which came in the form of a two-sentence email, were illegal because they violated a federal law requiring the White House to inform Congress with 30 days' notice, and provide "substantive rationale" for the firings, according to their 32-page complaint filed on Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia - where we're guessing they'll find a sympathetic judge.
The plaintiffs are eight of the 17 Senate-confirmed inspectors general who were fired just four days into President Donald Trump's second term in what the White House cited as "changing priorities." They are seeking their jobs back at the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Labor and State, and the Small Business Administration.
"IGs must be watchdogs, not lapdogs," reads the complaint, which names the Trump-appointed leaders or interim acting heads of each agency as defendants, according to the Washington Post.
"Plaintiffs’ purported removals have sent shockwaves and a massive chilling effect through the IG community," the complaint continues, adding that they "have been sent a message that non-partisanship and truth-telling will not be tolerated. That message will have the effect of intimidating the [inspector general] workforce and thus chill their critical work for the American people."
The fired IGs who joined the lawsuit are; Rob Storch (Defense), Michael Missal (VA), Christi Grimm (HHS), Sandra Bruce (Education), Phyllis Fong (Agriculture), Larry Turner (Labor), Cardell Richardson (State) and Hannibal “Mike” Ware (SBA).
Only two cabinet-level watchdogs were spared their jobs - those at Homeland Security and the DOJ, after the Tuesday firing of another IG; USAID's IG Paul Martin, a Biden appointee. Martin was fired after his office issued a blistering report slamming the Trump administration for 'hobbling' USAID's mission (to enrich corrupt politicians and influence the news?), and shrinking its staff.
The Wednesday complaint also claims that Trump has yet to communicate his intention to remove the watchdogs to Congress, in writing or otherwise, using any "substantive rationale for the removal of any IG — let alone the required detailed and case-specific reasons."
"His only public explanation came during a press gaggle on January 25 … when he stated, ‘I don’t know them … but some people thought that some were unfair, some were not doing their job,’ and falsely asserted that ‘it’s a very standard thing to do."
"The President did not identify the ‘people’ who supposedly ‘thought’ these things, which IGs any such thoughts pertained to, or how the unidentified IGs supposedly “were not doing their job," the complaint continues.