Trump’s war on federal oversight has watchdogs 'scared to death'

After the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, Congress carried out a series of reforms that included strengthening federal watchdogs and creating new agencies like the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. But according to NOTUS, President Donald Trump is greatly undermining that post-Watergate system during his second presidency.

Reporting for NOTUS, journalists Natalie Alms and Eric Katz explain, "The once-independent system that Congress established after Watergate has radically transformed in Trump's second term. Trump's unprecedented firing of nearly 20 inspectors general has unraveled the firewalls government's ombudsmen have operated under for decades. The new watchdogs are erasing the lines between agency leadership and their own watchdog offices, Office of Inspector General employees told NOTUS, openly suggesting they should work hand-in-glove with the Trump administration to advance its goals…. Trump has installed former political appointees from the same agencies they're now overseeing, a co-author of Project 2025, and a Republican congressman into watchdog roles across the government."

Alms and Katz add, "Those IGs have boosted the president and his appointees in ways that directly contravene the statutory independence of their offices, 11 current and former staffers told NOTUS."

One of the interviewees for their article was a senior OIG official.

Interviewed on condition of anonymity, the official told NOTUS, "All the adults have left the room. All these new IGs are lining up behind political leadership as if they're lapdogs."

The official noted that remaining officials in watchdog agencies are "scared to death to do anything," adding, "So for the most part, they're just sitting on their hands trying to lay low."

Alms and Katz point to recent events with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as an example of how much the federal watchdog system is changing under Trump. VA Inspector General Cheryl L. Mason, according to NOTUS sources, held up a move to new office space so that she could have a private bathroom in her office — which, Alms and Katz note, is the "kind of potentially pricey request that government watchdogs typically investigate."

An employee of the VA IG's office, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told NOTUS, "It's been incredibly challenging to continue doing the work we're doing." And another employee, also quoted anonymously, said, "She wanted to make sure the message of everything we did was part of every agreement, promise or whatever she had with the secretary. If you believe in independent oversight, that's not what we were doing."