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Restore accountability to the inspector general system

The Trump administration’s executive reforms demand constitutional accountability for federal agencies. The Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency and its Pandemic Response Accountability Committee managed to escape this accountability — that is, until the Office of Management and Budget temporarily withheld its funding.

Congress originally conceived of this council as a sort of professional association, coordinating training and best practices for several dozen inspector general offices. It has since evolved into a sort of law enforcement agency, overseeing and directing the inspector offices. As former inspectors general, appointed by President Trump in his first term and removed in his second, we witnessed how the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency has become less independent and more politicized.

Once, the FBI investigated allegations of IG wrongdoing. Now, the council does so through its so-called “Integrity Committee,” which drafts law enforcement agents from individual inspectors general to investigate other inspectors general.

In 2020, over the objections of Inspector General O’Donnell and others, the council stripped inspectors general of certain due process protections by allowing the Integrity Committee to ignore claims of privilege and to exclude an IG’s counsel from its proceedings. It is now a modern-day Star Chamber, insisting on secrecy while weaponizing investigations against disfavored inspectors general, particularly Trump appointees, and quashing more serious allegations against inspectors general known to support the council’s leadership.

With its Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity expanded its investigations to the general public. It now has the authority to employ armed law enforcement agents, make arrests, execute search warrants, and compel Americans to testify under oath.

Ordinary Americans have already felt the brunt of these expanded powers. In Massachusetts, an Orthodox Christian monk was targeted by Pandemic Response Accountability Committee and charged by disgraced former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins for fraud. This occurred simply because someone decided that he was a “purported” monk living a lavish lifestyle. Once this was debunked, the case collapsed, but not before costing the monk and his monastery millions.

Stories like these have not kept the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity from seeking more power, as it has recently pushed for expanded permanent law enforcement powers. This includes authority to create and operate a master database of all federal government data. Using AI and other tools, it would then use this database against ordinary Americans like the Orthodox monk.

Simultaneously, federal inspectors general and the council are becoming increasingly political. Inspectors general once insisted on a detached independence from agency decisionmakers. During the Biden administration, the council wanted inspectors general to have “a seat at the table” for policy decisions, creating at least the appearance of supporting partisan political appointees in their political missions.

We experienced this most acutely after passage of President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In April 2022, the council leadership told us that our presence was “required” for a meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, to discuss pandemic and infrastructure bill oversight with administration staff. What the council did not share until we arrived was that this was actually a press event with Biden in the White House to celebrate his legislative victories.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general was excluded from the invitation list, despite the department receiving almost $8 billion in infrastructure bill funding. Malicious leakers would subsequently characterize his absence as if he had spurned Biden by refusing to attend. The council never corrected the record. Even now, it resists producing all federal records related to the event, despite an ongoing lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch.

The Department of Homeland Security inspector general was an early target of a broader campaign to force out inspectors general who dissented from the council leadership’s policy preferences. Later, the council’s politicized dynamics led to the ouster of the Trump-appointed inspector general at the Social Security Administration and longtime inspectors general at the Railroad Retirement Board and the Commerce Department.

Power without constitutional accountability breeds abuse. Presidents cannot easily remove the council’s chair, except where the chair also happens to be one of the presidentially appointed inspectors general. But these represent less than half of all inspectors general. And Congress cannot control the council’s budget because it is funded through an “annual assessment” on individual inspectors general budgets.

In recent years, this inspector general tax has been dramatically increased to finance an expanded staff and premium office space.

Inspectors general should be addressing the massive fraud recently uncovered in Minnesota and elsewhere. To support those efforts, Congress may be tempted to give the council more power. But it cannot ignore the constitutional truth that even “independent watchdogs” must be constitutionally accountable.

Congress should abolish the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency or, at a minimum, force it back into its original mission. Its chair must be removable by the president, and it must receive funding through congressional appropriations. It should also be forced to return investigations of inspectors general to the FBI. Also, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee should be discontinued.

Trump is restoring accountability to many weaponized agencies. Congress should do the same for this council, refocusing watchdogs on fighting fraud instead of persecuting political opponents.

Sean O’Donnell is a senior attorney at Judicial Watch and former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General from 2020 to 2025. Eric Soskin, a long-time constitutional lawyer at the Department of Justice, served as the Senate-confirmed Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 2021 to 2025.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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