Consider This from NPR
The Trump administration's attacks on oversight of executive power
Wed, 12 Mar 2025
The Trump administration continues to fire, shut down or defund independent elements of the federal government that traditionally work as a check on presidential power.Supporters of President Trump say: That's exactly the point. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What are U.S. accountability mechanisms for foreign aid?
The Committee on Foreign Affairs will come to order. The purpose of this hearing is to assess the accountability mechanisms that ensure American taxpayer money is being spent as intended in Ukraine.
The speaker here is Mike McCaul. He's a Republican from Texas, and in March of 2023, he was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Today we have the opportunity to question the independent inspectors, generals from the Department of State, USAID, and the Department of Defense.
This hearing wasn't particularly memorable. It's just one example of the U.S. government in action. Congress conducts oversight on federal spending, like on aid to Ukraine. And so it called on the inspectors general of three different government departments or agencies.
Your work is a critical component to ensure that Congress is being good stewards of the taxpayers' money. And it's necessary to prevent waste, fraud or abuse, and if need be, investigate and resolve any incidents.
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Chapter 2: What role do inspectors general play in government oversight?
An inspector general is a nonpartisan watchdog inside the government. The role was created by a law, the Inspector General Act of 1978, which came out of post-Watergate efforts to put checks on executive power. And under that law, inspectors general set up independent offices within their government agencies to investigate things like waste, fraud, and abuse.
Waste, fraud and abuse has become a catchphrase for this Trump administration as a rationale for making cuts to the federal government. But at the end of his first week in office on a Friday night, President Trump fired inspectors general at 17 different agencies. He was asked about it the next day during a press gaggle on Air Force One.
Chapter 3: Why did President Trump fire inspectors general?
Can you talk to us about the firing of the inspectors general? Why did you do that? And why is it a...
Because it's a very common thing to do. And not all of them.
Trump told reporters he was keeping some inspectors general, including Michael Horowitz from the Department of Justice, whom he had singled out for his report that was critical of former FBI Director James Comey. Now, to be clear, a president can fire an IG, but he's required by law to give Congress a reason in writing, along with 30 days notice. And that didn't happen here.
Trump also added, I don't know that, but some people thought that some were unfair or some were not doing the job. And it's a very standard thing to do, very much like the U.S. attorneys.
Nothing about President Trump's second term is standard or conforms to norms of government. Consider this. Firing these inspectors general is just one of many moves that the president has made that undermine government systems designed to check presidential power. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.
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Chapter 4: How has the Trump administration changed the Justice Department?
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It's Consider This from NPR. The Trump administration continues to fire, shut down, or defund independent elements of the federal government that traditionally work as a check on presidential power. Supporters of President Trump say that's exactly the point.
NPR justice correspondent Kerry Johnson and NPR political correspondent Susan Davis have been reporting on this effort and how it could change government. They join us now. Hey to both of you. Hi, Elsa. Hey there.
OK, can you just start by explaining first the kinds of actions that you're talking about here when you say that President Trump is weakening or eliminating parts of the federal government that would ordinarily be a check on the executive? Carrie, you first.
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Chapter 5: What is the conservative perspective on government oversight roles?
Well, let's start with the Justice Department, my focus, where new leaders have basically swept the top ranks of the civil service. They've fired prosecutors who worked on cases against Donald Trump and against people who stormed the Capitol. They've fired the top ethics officials, the pardon attorney, the person in charge of Freedom of Information Act requests.
And they've tried to transfer some of the country's most experienced prosecutors who handle national security and tax issues into an office devoted to immigration. That's one of Trump's top priorities. They've also installed Ed Martin as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. He has no prosecutorial experience. He's been posting on social media that he's a lawyer for the president.
And he's threatened to go after people who criticize billionaire Elon Musk.
And one of the early actions that I would point to is when Trump decided that he was going to fire independent inspectors general across 18 different federal agencies. And these were jobs that were created in response to the Watergate scandal under President Nixon. They were designed to create more accountability in the executive branch.
But there's long been a view on the right that these jobs never should have been created in the first place. One of the people who agrees with that is John Yoo. He's a conservative legal scholar and a former Justice Department official.
And one way to understand what Trump is trying to do, and I'm not saying even that Trump understands this is what he's doing. But the presidency, the way it's designed, urges him to do it is he's trying to snap those bounds that were imposed on the presidency in the post-Watergate era.
So is the argument from some people on the right, essentially, there should be no independent checks on the president?
Within the executive branch, yes. I mean, people like you would argue that these agencies should absolutely exist, but they should be more directly accountable to the White House.
And you can see Trump testing these boundaries by his administration's effort to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for instance, as well as the stop work orders, the firings or attempted firings at independent agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Election Commission.
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