WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) -Eight U.S. inspectors general sued President Donald Trump and his administration on Wednesday over his decision to fire them from their role as independent checks on abuse and mismanagement, according to a court filing.
The inspectors general asked the U.S. District Court in Washington to declare they remained lawfully in their roles at their agencies and asked the court to prevent the administration from obstructing their official duties.
The IGs were fired from Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, State, Agriculture, Education and Labor, and the Small Business Administration.
“The purported firings violated unambiguous federal statutes — each enacted by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by the President — to protect inspectors general from precisely this sort of interference with the discharge of their critical, non-partisan oversight duties,” the lawsuit said.
The firings violated the Inspector General Act, which only allows a president to remove IGs after notifying Congress at least 30 days in advance and provide a substantive case-specific rationale, according to the lawsuit.
Trump has fired at least 17 inspectors general, which Democrats have alleged is illegal and even one powerful senator from Trump’s Republican Party asked the White House for an explanation.
The firings come amid a blitz of executive orders by Trump as part of his pledge to reshape and overhaul the federal government. Many of Trump’s policies have been blocked by courts.
(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)
