“It’s a massacre”: Trump fires inspectors general in illegal overnight purge

president Donald Trump Fired more than a dozen Inspectors General Late Friday night, a large portion of the civil servants charged with overseeing federal agencies were nearly gone.

Inspectors General are charged with independent oversight and oversight of efficiency within the federal government. According to Politico, The nonpartisan bureaucrats who fired Trump work in the State, Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Education, Labor and Defense departments, among others.

“It is a large-scale massacre,” the unnamed inspector general told Axe The Washington Post. “Whoever Trump puts in place now will be seen as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.”

Federal law requires advance notice to Congress of such removal. Trump did not meet this requirement, as a Senate Republican asserted on Saturday.

Chuck Grassley Iowa State told the trade publication for federal employees Government executive authority That the Senate had not been notified.

“I would like further clarification from President Trump…the detailed 30-day notice to take down that the law demands have not been submitted to Congress,” Grassley said.

Hannibal Ware, head of the committee responsible for inspectors general, told the White House on Friday that he did not believe the firings were valid based on failure to comply with the law, in a statement. letter Obtained by Politico. Grassley worries that the move could be an early sign of a general disregard for oversight of the executive branch.

“It’s a case of whether he believes in congressional oversight, because I work closely with all the inspectors general and I think I’ve earned a reputation for defending them. And I intend to defend them,” the senator said.

Critics said the shootings were a power grab by Trump, whose administrative actions could be stopped by bureaucratic oversight. Legal correspondent Mark Joseph Stern described the cleansing as “bone-chilling and unprecedented” in a… Next to Plozki.

“It’s straight out of the authoritarian playbook,” Stern said. “Inspectors general are a vital, independent check on misconduct and abuse within the executive branch. Trump is firing them so he can break the law with zero oversight.”