"It's a massacre": Trump fires inspectors general in illegal overnight purge

President Donald Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general late on Friday night, axing nearly a significant portion of the civil servants tasked with the oversight of federal agencies.

Inspectors General are tasked with independent oversight and efficiency monitoring inside the federal government. According to Politico, the nonpartisan bureaucrats that Trump fired work in the departments of State, Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Education, Labor and Defense, among others.

"It’s a widespread massacre," an unnamed inspector general who got the axe told the Washington Post. "Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system."

Federal law requires advance notice to Congress for such removals. Trump did not meet that requirement, a top Senate Republican confirmed on Saturday. 

Chuck Grassley of Iowa told the federal employee trade publication Government Executive that the Senate was not notified.

“I’d like further explanation from President Trump… The 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress,” Grassley said. 

Hannibal Ware, chairman of the committee responsible for the inspectors general, told the White House on Friday that he didn’t believe the firings were valid based on the noncompliance with the law, in a letter obtained by Politico. Grassley worried that the move could be an early sign of a general disregard for oversight of the executive branch.

“It’s the case of whether he believes in congressional oversight, because I work closely with all the inspectors general and I think I’ve got a good reputation for defending them. And I intend to defend them,” the senator said.

Critics said the firings were a power grab by Trump, whose administrative actions could be stalled by bureaucratic oversight. Slate legal correspondent Mark Joseph Stern called the purge “bone-chilling and unprecedented” in a post to Bluesky.

“It’s straight out of the authoritarian’s playbook,” Stern said. “Inspectors general are a vital, independent check on misconduct and abuse within the executive branch. Trump is ousting them so he can break the law with zero oversight.”