Ranking Member Huffman Sounds the Alarm on Trump’s Illegal Midnight Purge of Federal Watchdogs
In unprecedented move, Trump enacts Project 2025 scheme to fire independent inspectors general and lay off environmental justice and diversity employees
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) – founder of the Stop Project 2025 Task Force – issued the following statement on Trump’s late-night firing of inspectors general from various federal agencies and purge of federal employees responsible for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. These plans were included in Trump’s extreme Project 2025 agenda.
“Wannabe dictator Donald Trump’s Friday Night Massacre of more than a dozen inspectors general is blatantly illegal and cannot stand. These internal government watchdogs are entrusted by Congress with independent oversight authority to prevent corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money. Purging these nonpartisan, independent federal employees and replacing them with Trump loyalists is straight out of the Project 2025 playbook, which calls for the Trump administration to install “their own IGs” so that they “have control of the people that work within the government.” In addition to flouting federal law, this power play dismantles one of the most important mechanisms for transparency and government accountability. By systematically removing checks and balances Trump is not only opening the door to corruption and illegality; he’s trying to pave his way to supreme authority,” said Ranking Member Huffman.
“At the same time, the Trump administration ordered sweeping layoffs of employees who have had any role in promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal workforce, particularly in matters relating to decisions about managing the environment. This, too, is right out of the Project 2025 playbook. Stifling the voices of tribes, minorities, and frontline and environmental justice communities does not make America great – it simply harkens back to dark chapters in our history when an entrenched white patriarchy threw disadvantaged communities and the working class under the bus and allowed corporate polluters to plunder with impunity.
“Those of us who still believe in democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law, must call out and oppose what Trump is doing here. My Democratic colleagues and I will not stand idly by and watch democracy crumble. We will shine a light on Trump’s egregious abuses of power and draw this corruption out of the shadows for everyone in America to see.”
BACKGROUND
Last Friday night, the White House fired the independent inspectors general of at least 14 major federal agencies. Oversight of some of the government’s largest agencies was affected: the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management also directed agency heads to "take action to terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions within sixty days.”
The 922-page Project 2025 policy agenda lists in-depth plans to weaken anti-corruption laws, replace qualified experts with political cronies, and eliminate efforts to defend environmental justice and diverse communities. In one of its corresponding “Presidential Administration Academy” video trainings, two Project 2025 leaders say that, upon election, the next U.S. president should replace the independent Inspectors General (IGs) working to oversee federal operations and detect and prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct throughout 74 federal programs. The Project 2025 leaders said the next president should instead install “their own IGs” so that they “have control of the people that work within the government.”
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