Inspectors General Sue Trump, Department Heads Over Firings (2)

The recently-fired inspectors general of eight federal agencies are suing the administration over their alleged “unlawful and unjustified” terminations by President Donald Trump and his newly-appointed secretaries.

Their firings “violated unambiguous federal statutes” to protect inspectors general from “precisely this sort of interference with the discharge of their critical, non-partisan oversight duties,” the complaint filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia said.

Trump last month directed the firings of several inspectors general, the nonpartisan officials who investigate and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government. The move was one of several Trump has taken in the first few weeks of his presidency testing his executive authority to remove government officials. Trump directed the removal of Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, the head of the federal Office of Government Ethics, and members of the Merit Systems Protection Board and National Labor Relations Board in recent weeks.

The plaintiffs each received a two-sentence email Jan. 24 notifying them that their positions were terminated effective immediately due to “changing priorities,” the complaint says.

The Inspector General Act requires the president to notify Congress at least 30 days before removing an inspector general with “substantive, case-specific” reasons for the termination. The law also prohibits any agency officials from preventing inspectors general from carrying out their responsibilities.

But Trump failed to provide Congress with the required notice or adequate reasons for the removals. The plaintiffs’ access to government emails and computer systems was also allegedly cut off, preventing them from carrying out their duties.

“IGs and Offices of Inspector General have been sent a message that non-partisanship and truth-telling will not be tolerated,” which will intimidate and chill the work of inspectors general, the complaint alleges.

The former inspectors general of the Small Business Administration and departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, State, Agriculture, Education, and Labor are requesting that the court declare their terminations inconsistent with the IGA. They also seek a court order stating they’re still the inspectors general of their respective agencies, and prohibiting agency heads from obstructing their ability to carry out their responsibilities.

“Without IG independence, we wouldn’t have the same ability to wash the big windows, to report on the facts as we find them and deliver hard-hitting reports that may contain information that is unpopular to any administration—Democrat or Republican,” Christi Grimm, a plaintiff in the suit who was the inspector general at HHS, told Bloomberg Law Wednesday. “We’re not looking for our jobs back. The president can fire us. We’re asking that the legal process be followed.”

Spokespeople for the SBA and departments of Defense, Education, and State said the agencies don’t comment on pending litigation. The other agencies and White House didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP represents the inspectors general.

—With assistance from Jeannie Baumann.

The case is Storch v. Hegseth, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00415, complaint filed 2/12/25.