House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman wrote to Chair Bruce Westerman urging a hearing into President Donald Trump’s apparently illegal purge of inspectors general across a swath of government agencies.
Huffman (D-Calif.) was joined on the letter by Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ranking member Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.). The pair urged Westerman (R-Ark.) to “hold a hearing in the full committee exploring the implications of the firings for issues within our jurisdiction.”
They tore into the firings as an attempt to replace independent IGs with loyalists. “President Trump fired at least 18 IGs in an email that lacked the justification or the 30-day notice to Congress required by law,” Huffman and Dexter wrote Monday.
“The sweeping nature of the firings suggests an effort to replace independent watchdogs committed to a more effective and efficient government and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse with those more inclined to protect the President and his cabinet regardless of their transgressions,” the lawmakers wrote.
