President Trump fired at least 12 inspectors general late on Friday night, three people with knowledge of the matter said, capping a week of dramatic shake-ups of the federal government with a purge of independent watchdog officials created by Congress to root out abuse and illegality within federal agencies.
The firings defied a law that requires presidents to give Congress 30 days’ advance notice before removing any inspector general, along with reasons for the firing. Just two years ago, Congress strengthened that provision by requiring the notice to include a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons” for the removal.
The move was the latest wave of abrupt upheavals following the inauguration of Mr. Trump that have put the government in increasing confusion.
There were competing lists circulating in Washington on Saturday morning of which inspectors general had received an email from the White House telling them each on behalf of Mr. Trump that “due to changing priorities, your position as inspector general” was “terminated, effective immediately.”
But agencies and departments whose watchdogs were said to have been removed included the departments of agriculture, commerce, defense, education, housing and urban development, interior, labor, transportation and veterans affairs, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Small Business Administration.
It was not clear whether the departments of State and the Treasury were included, but multiple people said that Michael E. Horowitz, the inspector general for the Justice Department, had been spared. Mr. Horowitz was lauded by Mr. Trump’s supporters in 2019 after he uncovered serious errors and omissions in the F.B.I.’s applications to wiretap a former foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign as part of the Russia investigation.
Mr. Trump himself had appointed some of the inspectors general believed to have been fired, and it was unclear what criteria the White House had used in selecting who would be dismissed. There was also confusion about the precise scope of the purge, and senior Trump administration officials provided different numbers late Friday as to how many had been axed.
Two people with knowledge of the matter said on Friday night that 17 inspectors general had been terminated; a third person said on Saturday morning that the figure was at least 12. On Saturday morning, a White House official confirmed that “some” inspectors general had been dismissed, but did not respond to a request for a list of those who had been terminated.
The White House also did not respond to a request for comment about why Mr. Trump had defied the law that required him to provide advance notice and a detailed explanation to lawmakers, then wait a month.
In a statement, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and a self-styled champion of inspectors general, said he was seeking more information.
“There may be good reason the I.G.s were fired,” Mr. Grassley said, referring to the inspectors general. “We need to know that, if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress.”
Mr. Grassley and his fellow Republican senator from Iowa, Joni Ernst, recently co-founded a bipartisan inspector general caucus to support the watchdog officials.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Ms. Ernst said she “looks forward to learning more about this decision and working with the president to nominate replacements, so the important work of independent investigators to root out waste, fraud and abuse can continue with full transparency.”
Democrats reacted with more forceful alarm.
“Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse and preventing misconduct,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.”
The emails informing the inspectors general that they had been fired were sent by Trent Morse, the deputy director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. His terse messages concluded by thanking them for their service.
Later on Friday night, Hannibal Ware, the inspector general of the Small Business Administration and head of a council of the watchdogs across various agencies, sent a letter to Mr. Morse’s supervisor, Sergio Gor, the head of the White House personnel office, suggesting that the termination notices were invalid because they did not comply with the 30-day notice law.
“I recommend that you reach out to White House counsel to discuss your intended course of action,” Mr. Ware wrote. “At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed inspectors general.”
In the letter, Mr. Ware also identified himself as one of the people who had been told they were fired. The Washington Post earlier reported the firings on Friday night and on Saturday morning Politico earlier reported on the Ware letter, which The Times also obtained.
Congress created inspectors general in a 1978 law as part of the post-Watergate scandal wave of reforms to the government. The idea was to have independent watchdogs embedded within federal agencies and departments who are not controlled by the secretary or agency head who runs the organization.
Over time, their number expanded. There are now 74 inspectors general throughout the executive branch, although only 36 of them are Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed officials. Some of those positions have been vacant and filled by acting inspectors.
Inspectors general can uncover incompetence or wrongdoing that embarrasses administrations, and presidents have sometimes chafed about their existence. President Ronald Reagan replaced all Jimmy Carter-appointed inspectors general when he took over in 1981, but he later rehired some of them.
Since then, the norm has been that they remain in place when new presidents take office, as nonpartisan officials, and it is rare for presidents to remove them absent any misconduct.
In 2020, however, Mr. Trump ousted or sidelined a series of inspectors general who were seen as investigating his administration aggressively, saying he had been treated “very unfairly” by them, and appointed several replacements under a cloud of partisan controversy.
At the time, Mr. Trump was dealing with the coronavirus pandemic spreading across the country, but he also was seeking to reshape the government to remove people he saw as trying to damage him. That included Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community, who dealt with the anonymous whistle-blower complaint that had led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment by the House.
Hiroko Tabuchi and Sarah Kliff contributed reporting.
