U.S. President Donald Trump fired 17 independent watchdogs at multiple government agencies on Friday, a person with knowledge of the matter said, eliminating a critical oversight component and clearing the way to replace them with loyalists.
The inspectors general at agencies including the departments of state, defense and transportation were notified by emails from the White House personnel director that they had been terminated immediately, the source said on condition of anonymity.
The dismissals appeared to violate federal law, which requires the president to give both houses of Congress reasons for the dismissals 30 days in advance.
This is a test. Maybe someone raises a stink about this, but maybe not. Next firing will be 100 people. Then 1000. Trump’s testing to see who will stop him.
I don’t know, I think the fact that they did this in a Friday night looks less like testing the limits and more like something they knew might be close to too much for even Congressional Republicans to stomach but something they really want to get away with. If this goes through we’re just never going to find out about a lot of the corruption that will happen in this administration.