Interior’s fired IG warns against hiring of a ‘lackey’ watchdog

By Michael Doyle | 01/27/2025 01:41 PM EST

Mark Lee Greenblatt became the Interior inspector general in 2019, during the first Trump administration.

Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt sits and talks on a couch.

Former Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt speaks a couple weeks after he started his job in August 2019. Francis Chung/POLITICO's E&E News

Mark Lee Greenblatt’s 5-½-year tenure as the Interior Department’s chief watchdog ended unceremoniously at about 7:30 p.m. Friday with a two-sentence email from the White House.

“I was actually walking back from my tae kwon do class, and I just happened to check my work email, and I saw there was an email from the White House,” Greenblatt said in an interview Monday. “It was a very short email that said, due to changing priorities, my position has been terminated, effective immediately. And thank you for your service.”

Greenblatt immediately called Mike Ware, another inspector general and head of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

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“I said, ‘Mike, I just got fired.’ And he said, ‘Me, too,'” Greenblatt said. “And I got a text from another IG who had gotten removed. And that’s when we started to know, this is big.”

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