Tangle - The inspector general firings.

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

On Friday night, President Donald Trump reportedly fired at least 17 inspectors general (IGs) at several federal agencies. In response, several lawmakers expressed concern that the White House had violated federal rules requiring the president to provide Congress with at least 30 days' notice of intent before firing any inspector general, a Senate-confirmed position. The dismissed inspectors general had been overseeing the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture, as well as three federal agencies: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration. Ad-free podcasts are here!Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it. You can go to tanglemedia.supercast.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Take the survey: What do you think of the IG firings? Let us know!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Kat Nat from the Kat Nat Unfiltered Podcast. You know we're all about finding those little moments that bring comfort and connection. That's why this winter we're loving the new Starbucks handcrafted menu. Starbucks is the ultimate winter survival companion for Canadians. With handcrafted espresso beverages like the new Cortado and brown sugar oat Cortado, those freezing temperatures suddenly don't feel so bad. If you're looking to elevate your winter routine and add some intentional moments of pause,

stop by Starbucks this winter. Every visit to Starbucks is worth it. ["Tangle," by The Bachelorette and the Bachelorette plays.] From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. I'm your host for today, John Law, and today we are going to be discussing President Trump's firing of at least 17 inspectors general on Friday night.

We'll look at some takes from the left and the right on whether Trump may have violated the law, if Trump may have been right to scrutinize the independent watchdog system, and if these firings may lead to an even more important legal fight. Later on, I'll share today's take written by managing editor Ari Weitzman. Before we get started, over the past week, our staff inbox has been flooded with feedback. Lots of congratulations for Isaac's family, lots of support for our staff's coverage while he's on break, and plenty of critical feedback for the team, and especially Ari Weitzman, the managing editor.

He's currently stepped into the leading editorial role while Isaac is away. One of the issues in particular that got a lot of attention was Ari's interpretation of Elon Musk's gesture as not an intentional Nazi salute. On yesterday's Sunday podcast, Ari sat down with Magdalena Bikova, Tangle's head of partnerships and social, to respond to the feedback and give a more full perspective. If you're interested in hearing that, you can listen to the first half for free, which is available to all podcast listeners. If you'd like to hear the full episode, Uncut and Uninterrupted, you need to become a premium podcast subscriber, which you can do by going to TangleMedia.Supercast.com and signing up

for a membership. All right, with that out of the way, let's jump into today's quick hits. First up, the Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the tie-breaking vote after three Republican senators, Susan Collins from Maine, Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, voted against his nomination. Separately, the Senate confirmed Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security by a 59-34 vote.

After President Donald Trump threatened to impose a series of tariffs and sanctions on the country, Colombian President Gustavo Petro backed off his decision to turn away US military planes carrying unauthorized immigrants who had been deported. Hamas released four female Israeli soldiers taken hostage during the October 7th attack, and Israel released 200 imprisoned Palestinians in the second exchange of the current ceasefire agreement. Separately, the White House announced that the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel has been extended until February 18th. 4. South Korean prosecutors indicted President Yoon Suk-yol on charges that he directed a

rebellion when he imposed martial law in early December. Yun becomes South Korea's first sitting president to be indicted. 5. President Trump visited California and North Carolina to survey damage from recent natural disasters. Prior to the trip, Trump announced an executive order to overhaul or eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. Into the weekend and then over the weekend, President Trump continued his flurry of executive moves, firing at least 15 Inspectors General. These are the independent watchdogs in the government meant to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.

Mark Lee Greenblatt served as the Inspector General for the Department of Interior until late Friday night when President Trump fired him, along with more than a dozen other IGs. This is absolutely unprecedented. There is nothing that's ever happened remotely like this. On Friday night, President Donald Trump reportedly fired at least 17 inspectors general at several federal agencies.

In response, several lawmakers expressed concern that the White House had violated federal rules requiring the president to provide Congress with at least 30 days' notice of intent before firing any Inspector General, a Senate-confirmed position. The dismissed Inspectors General had been overseeing the Departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, Treasury, and Agriculture, as well as three federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration. An Inspector General's primary role is to conduct audits, investigations, and inspections of Cabinet-level departments and major agencies to prevent waste,

fraud, and abuse in government. IGs are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. The White House cited changing priorities in its communications to the dismissed IGs. On Saturday, Trump defended the firings as a very common thing to do, though he declined to elaborate on his rationale. I don't know them, Trump said, but some people thought that some were unfair or some were not doing their job. It's a very standard thing to do. Many of the ousted watchdogs had reportedly been appointed by Trump in his first term. During his first term, Trump

fired five independent watchdogs, including one who had informed Congress about a whistleblower complaint that led to Trump's first impeachment. In 2022, Congress passed reforms to the IG system, requiring the president to formally explain any removals. Hannibal Ware, an inspector general and chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, wrote a letter to the White House on Friday stating, "...we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Inspectors General. At least one of the fired IGs reportedly plans to show up for work on Monday.

Many Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans immediately denounced the move. A group of top House Democrats signed a joint letter to Trump on Saturday, defending the federal watchdog system and criticizing the mass firings. Firing inspectors general without due cause is antithetical to good government, undermines the proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and degrades the federal government's ability to function effectively and efficiently," they wrote. Separately, Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican from Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Trump may have broken the law in how he carried out the firings. There may be good reason the IGs were fired.

We need to know that, if so, Grassley said. I'd like further explanation from President Trump. Other Republicans, however, defended the move. Time and time again, the Supreme Court has said that Congress can't impose restrictions on the president's power to remove officers, Senator Tom Cotton said. Trump has a right to get in there who he wants. Today, we'll share arguments on the firings from commentators on the left and the right, and then managing editor Ari Weitzman will give his take. We'll be right back after this quick break.

Hey, it's Kat Nat from the Kat Nat Unfiltered podcast. You know we're all about finding those little moments that bring comfort and connection. That's why this winter we're loving the new Starbucks handcrafted menu. Starbucks is the ultimate winter survival companion for Canadians. With handcrafted espresso beverages like the new Cortado and brown sugar oat Cortado, those freezing temperatures suddenly don't feel so bad. If you're looking to elevate your winter routine and add some intentional moments of pause, stop by Starbucks this winter. Every visit to Starbucks is worth it.

All right. First up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left criticizes the move, arguing Trump blatantly violated the law. Some worry the firings will allow government waste and fraud to go unchecked. Others say Trump's disregard for the law endangers the country. In the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus wrote, Trump's Friday night massacre is blatantly illegal. The blatantly illegal action is troubling in itself.

Nonpartisan inspectors general play a critical role in assuring the lawful and efficient operations of government in democratic and republican administrations alike. An administration supposedly focused on making government more efficient would be empowering inspectors general, not firing them en masse, Marcus said. But this episode is even more alarming than that. It offers a chilling foreshadowing of Trump unbound, heedless of the rule of law and unwilling to tolerate any potential impediment to his authority. The firings don't just pose a fundamental challenge to the inspectors general and the

agencies they serve. They are a threat to the authority of Congress itself. What is the point of laws if lawmakers permit them to be so cavalierly ignored? Marcus wrote. Congress, and the rest of us, need to closely watch what comes next. Presumably, Trump didn't remove the incumbent inspectors general just to let their deputies continue business as usual. You can weaponize these jobs, one of the ousted inspectors general told me. You can ignore bad things.

You can go after the prior administration. You can try to filter or edit work that comes out. They've taken away one of the huge checks and balances." In the New York Daily News, Lucy Lang said, Protect the Independent U.S. Inspectors General. If someone does something in the middle of a Friday night without a public announcement, and then, when asked about it by the press, refuses to provide any details, it probably isn't something they want people to pay a lot of attention to," Lang wrote. IGs work to ensure government effectiveness and efficiency.

They also serve as a bulwark against abuse and misconduct, and because of their independence, can act as reliable truth-tellers in the face of controversy. We know what the lack of independent oversight looks like in other countries. In 2016, President Abdel Farrar al-Sisi fired and imprisoned the head of Egypt's central auditing agency after publication of a report documenting widespread political corruption. Though one cannot directly link this removal to current economic instability in the country, Langset, Congress needs to stand behind the law and more. cannot directly link this removal to current economic instability in the country," Lang said. Congress needs to stand behind the law and more.

It needs to protect the independence of IGs to be effective truth-tellers when it comes to efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and protecting the federal system from fraud, waste, and abuse. In Jurist News, Michael J. Kelly called the firings the beginning of Trump's assault on the rule of law. Twice stymied in his first term from asserting unfettered control over the federal government, first by his own political appointees and career civil servants who refused to bend to his will, second switching from internal to external forces by using a mob to foment

the January 6, 2021, insurrection, which failed. President Donald Trump clearly has resolved not to be so stymied in his second term, Kelly wrote. What happens when presidents break the law in this way? Congress has very little recourse beyond holding hearings or impeachment, neither of which a Republican Congress will be willing to undertake. While not much might happen to Trump for not following the law, either politically or legally, accepting and normalizing such behavior by our chief executive has enormous consequences for the nation. Previously, modern presidents paid prices for not following the law in a rule-of-law

society, Kelly said. If what Trump learned to do by successfully ignoring or outrunning the law in the abbreviated version of his Wilderness Years, the interregnum between his terms, is tolerated and allowed to take root in the Oval Office, America is in much bigger trouble than anyone realizes. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is mixed on the move, though many argue Trump was right to scrutinize the independent watchdog system. Some say Trump is showing an indifference to the rule of law in his first week in office.

Others say some of the firings are puzzling and could set up an important legal fight. In PJ Media, Matt Margolis called the firings a big move against the deep state. By definition, inspectors general are supposed to be independent federal watchdogs who are tasked with identifying and cleaning up waste and abuse in government. That's what we expect them to do. However, as Real Clear Politics reporter Susan Crabtree notes, many of the Inspectors General have a track record of whitewashing reports and engaging in partisan politics where left-wing officials are often given a pass, Margolis wrote. And if you think about it, can anyone give me any examples of accountability during the Biden administration?

Anyone? In 2009, Obama fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin to protect a political ally. Walpin had been investigating Obama's friend and donor Kevin Johnson, who had misused Federal AmeriCorps funds by funneling them into his personal non-profit, using the money for political activities and even paying hush money to underage girls who had accused him of sexual abuse, Margolis said. Reports suggest that Trump did not notify Congress of his decision to fire the Inspector's General, as required by law.

As a result, the terminations may need to undergo additional legal review and procedural steps before they are finalized, but it's clear that these deep staters need replacing. In reason, Eric Boehme suggested Trump likely violated federal law. Many of those fired were Trump appointees from his first term in office. It remains unclear whether the administration plans to fill the positions with newly appointed loyalists or to leave the post-vacant, Boehm wrote. The firings will likely trigger an immediate legal battle over the president's authority to send Inspector inspector generals packing. A law passed by Congress in 2008 requires the White House to provide 30 days notice

before removing or replacing an inspector general. An updated version of that law, passed in 2022, requires that a president provide Congress with substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for the removal. This mass dismissal comes on the heels of Trump's move earlier this week to dismiss several members rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for the removal. This mass dismissal comes on the heels of Trump's move earlier this week to dismiss several members from a White House board that provides oversight on privacy and civil liberties issues, including the federal government's warrantless spying program, Spohm said. So far, the second Trump administration seems less interested in draining the swamp than

in pushing aside people who might sound the alarm about corruption, illegal actions, and other abuses of executive power. In Red State, the blogger Strife said the move throws DC status quo into chaos. The inspectors general are allegedly independent of the administration and are supposed to root out fraud, waste, abuse, and law breaking. The reality is much more checkered," Strife wrote. "'Without playing politics, you don't achieve the political profile necessary to get a presidential appointment.

The political incentive means that an IG is a double-edged sword because their purported independence provides an incentive to curry favor with all parties.'" What makes this list so curious is that Sean O'Donnell, the EPAIG appointed by Trump's first term, was fired while the DOJIG, Michael Horowitz, who never lifted a finger to reel in Merrick Garland's massive abuses of power, was retained, Strife said. This move is curious. If it isn't simply an impulsive act, the Trump White House may be using this court case to audition arguments that can be used on another congressional permission case, like a challenge to the Impoundment

Control Act of 1974. Alright, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to our take. Today's take was written by managing editor Ari Weitzman, but I will be reading it in the first person. I can easily come up with a banal justification for what President Trump is doing, and I think I can understand these moves from his perspective. However, I also find these actions very concerning, and I am very leery of what could come next.

First, the justification. During his first term in office, Trump was, famously, plagued by powerful staffers actively resisting his agenda. In a then-anonymous 2018 op-ed in the New York Times, former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor described how he and others resisted President Trump internally, creating what he called a two-track presidency, where the administration's actions often contradicted the president's statements. In order to really enact his agenda the second time around, Trump has good reason for dismantling

the structures that could get in his way, reclassifying as many as 50,000 employees or more to Schedule F to allow him to remove them at will, and firing Inspectors General who, in the past, have scrutinized his operations and whom he's accused of holding partisan motivations. As an example, Trump issued an executive order in his first week blocking new federal rules and regulations in all agencies where Trump's appointed agency chief is not yet on the job. NIGs could easily block that agenda from being implemented. Once we start thinking about these decisions from Trump's point of view, as cutting the

red tape that strangled his first term, we can see a pretty justifiable course of action. Decisions like removing inspectors general and firing members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board make sense from that perspective. We can also see these decisions as an extension of Trump's mandate. He ran on fundamentally reorganizing the federal government and keeping existing roles and mechanisms for internal oversight could arguably be made redundant by a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ.

But justifying these actions from Trump's point of view is very different from justifying them to the American people. And I don't think that the President's current strategy is justifiable for three reasons. These moves are actually going to make the government less efficient, there are less effective use for his agenda, and he's now inviting more corruption and more politicization into our government. First, if Trump follows through on reorganizing the government by pursuing the same all-out blitz strategy he's enacting with immigration policy, clearing out potentially obstinate and partisan federal employees with a bulldozer rather than with measured consideration, he'll

probably do more to create a hobbled and ineffective government than a smaller, more efficient one. Remember, Trump tried to redesignate federal employees to at-will employment at the end of his last term, and since then a University of Texas study found that such a move was likely to degrade government performance. Second, if this is a reorganization effort, it strikes me as a poor one. I don't know that Trump will export oversight of these agencies to Doge, but if that is his plan, then I think it's misguided. These IGs are important backstops of corruption. Doge, meanwhile, can focus on

finding fat to trim, starting with the departments that have the most government employees, the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, which employ about half of the federal workforce between the three of them. The Pentagon has long been plagued by bloat, and other Republican lawmakers have already introduced legislation to modernize software systems in the VA to make it more efficient. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has been ramping up domestic surveillance programs for years, despite the federal government already having a central intelligence agency, a federal Bureau of Investigation, a national security agency, and a secret service that all have intelligence gathering as part of their purview. Why not start there?

Which brings me to my third point, corruption. Remember that privacy and civil liberties oversight board that Trump fired members from? Its job is to look into government infringement on civil liberties, like illegal domestic surveillance, and it's now inoperable. And remember that the DHS is growing in surveillance programs, and that the federal government already has a dark history of spying on US citizens. If you're concerned about the potential for government overreach, I think what Trump did is just give you more reason to be concerned.

Yes, firing these inspectors general does appear illegal and could well be overturned in court, but that illegality isn't my biggest issue with it. My biggest problem is that these are the people whose job it is to investigate and report on impropriety in their agencies, and Trump just fired at least 17 of them en masse with no clear reason and no communicated plan to replace them. If, and or when he does give the Senate its legal notice, and he does remove these inspectors general, who's going to stop these agencies from becoming ineffective, unrestrained, and

filled with unscrupulous yes-men. Last Wednesday, we scathed President Biden on his way out the door for adding another link to the chain of hyper-partisanship in government. Now, Trump's taking steps that could easily add another link to that chain. Maybe the president only wants to cut bloat quickly and decisively, and reorganize the way government oversight is done. But he's paving the way for a politicized bureaucracy with fewer checks on corruption and moves like illegally clearing out independent watchdogs of federal agencies put us on high

alert for what's next to come. We'll be right back after this quick break. Hey, it's Kat Nat from the Kat Nat Unfiltered podcast. You know we're all about finding those little moments that bring comfort and connection. That's why this winter we're loving the new Starbucks handcrafted menu. Starbucks is the ultimate winter survival companion for Canadians. With handcrafted espresso beverages like the new Cortado and brown sugar oat Cortado, those freezing temperatures suddenly don't feel so bad. If you're looking to elevate your

winter routine and add some intentional moments of pause, stop by Starbucks this winter. Every visit to Starbucks is worth it. All right, that is it for our take today, which brings us to Your Questions Answered. This one came from a Tangle Instagram follower. The question is, there's a lot of chatter about meta users being forced to follow Trump and JD Vance's social accounts and not being able to unfollow them. Is this true? We asked our Head of Partnerships and Socials Magdalena Bikova to answer this question. The following is her answer.

It seems like 80% of the issue comes from confusion over how Meta handles rebranding of old accounts and 20% from genuine tech issues. When a new administration takes office, they don't open fresh accounts, but take over the existing ones. In this case, President Trump assumed the POTUS handle, and Vice President Vance took over the VP handle on Facebook and Instagram, similar to how it works on X. For some people following Biden's White House account, following Trump's felt like it came out of nowhere, mainly for three reasons. One, posts from former President Biden and Vice President Harris were archived, making

the accounts appear wiped clean. This felt disorienting to old users as it looked like the history of the previous administration had just vanished. Number two, Meta decided to slap a bright blue new emblem on the profile photos. This led Biden and Harris followers, who were suddenly seeing new accounts with none of the old posts to reference, to assume that they were being forced to follow Trump and Vance. Three, scores of users have claimed that they can't unfollow these new accounts.

This issue is less clear cut. Meta has actually acknowledged this, saying in a statement that it may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands. Passing the buck, Zuck? Sorry, couldn't help it. I don't think it's nefarious though. What would Meta stand to gain? I'd err on this being a tech glitch rather than some diabolical plan that doesn't even

make sense, but send me your conspiracy theories if you want. Honestly, I would be more concerned about last Monday's report that Meta was hiding hashtags related to Democrats, or the New York Times reporting that posts related to abortion pill access were blurred or hidden, which makes it seem like Meta is throttling certain types of left-leaning content or making changes to how things are being shown in people's feeds. Our own Instagram post related to immigration last week, using immigration hashtags, was seemingly throttled,

but it remains to be seen whether it was intentional or just a result of an algorithm update or a glitch. Either way, it reaffirms that getting out of the algorithmic news cycles is critical. Alright that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our Under the Radar story. An artificial intelligence startup in China shocked the US tech community with the release of its new model, raising concerns about the pace of China's AI development. The startup, DeepSeek, recently unveiled its R1

model, which demonstrates advanced reasoning capabilities, particularly in coding and math problems. Furthermore, the startup claimed that it created and released its open-source project on $6 million in training costs, a fraction of what leading US AI companies are spending on their models. The release comes amid escalating moves by the US government to try to limit China's AI capabilities, including new export controls on advanced AI chips announced during former President Biden's last week in office. Axios has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. Alright, next up is our numbers section.

The year the Inspector General Act was signed into law was 1978, establishing the first Inspector's general positions within the United States government. The number of departmental IGs initially established by the law was 12. The current number of statutory IG positions across the federal government is 74. The number of IGs fired by President Ronald Reagan when he took office in 1981 was 16. Reagan would rehire five of them after Congress objected to the move. The number of IGs President Donald Trump fired in a roughly six-week period in 2020 was five. The percentage of U.S. adults who think the system of checks and balances

in the United States is working well is 46 percent, according to an April 2024 AP NORC poll. The percentage of Americans who think the country needs a strong president who should be allowed to rule without too much interference from courts and Congress is 40 percent, according to a March 2024 Reuters Ipsos poll. And the percentage of US adults who think America has gotten so far off track that we need a leader who is willing to break some rules to set things right is 41% according to a March 2024 NPR PBS Marist poll. Alright and last but not least our Have a Nice Day story.

In 2017, Tani Lulua Adiyumi, or Tani as he's otherwise known, lived in a New York City homeless shelter with his family after fleeing the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. But his difficult circumstances did not stop him from learning new skills. He began playing chess, and at the age of 8 he had already won the State K-3 Division Championship. Since then, Tani has won his age division at the North American Youth Championships, achieved the rank of National Master, and won the 2024 U.S. Cadet Championship. Although Tani recognizes there are a number of paths he can take in his life, he says, for now, I want to just get to grand master.

I'll figure out the rest when I get older. Nice news has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. All right. That is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to readtangle.com and sign up for a membership. You can also go to tanglemedia.supercast.com to sign up for a premium podcast membership,

which gets you ad-free daily podcasts, Friday editions, Sunday editions, interviews, bonus content, and so much more. We'll be right back here tomorrow for Ari and the rest of the crew. This is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace.

Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kedak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bacopa, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. Hey, it's Kat Nat from the Kat Nat Unfiltered Podcast. You know we're all about finding those little moments that bring comfort and connection. That's why this winter we're loving the new Starbucks handcrafted menu.

Starbucks is the ultimate winter survival companion for Canadians. With handcrafted espresso beverages like the new Cortado and brown sugar oat Cortado, those freezing temperatures suddenly don't feel so bad. If you're looking to elevate your winter routine and add some intentional moments of pause, stop by Starbucks this winter.

Every visit to Starbucks is worth it.