President Trump’s decision to nominate Dennis Kirk to serve as Inspector General of the Department of the Interior is a profound mistake. His appointment will drain the department’s credibility more quickly than it seems able to drain the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool amid the controversial renovations he’ll likely have to investigate, and undermine independent oversight at a moment when the department desperately needs it.

Kirk is not an experienced auditor, investigator, prosecutor, or oversight professional. He is a partisan operative who was an architect of Project 2025, a political initiative and policy playbook published by The Heritage Foundation. President Trump had already installed Kirk as a “special advisor” inside the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, a position akin to a government minder straight out of Russia or China—or even a mole. This was a wholly unprecedented move; in my 20 years in the oversight business, including serving as an Inspector General and Chair of the Council of Inspectors General, I have never ever heard of anything like it. I can only assume his role was to watch the office, and report back on purported “deep........

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