GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley Says Donald Trump Isn't Following The Law [View all]
Source: Huff Post
Feb 12, 2025, 02:36 PM EST
President Donald Trump’s abrupt firings of top watchdogs in charge of rooting out waste, fraud and corruption in the federal government violated the law, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Wednesday. Trump fired the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday after his office released a scathing report on the administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency, including how it put nearly half a billion dollars of food assistance at risk of spoiling. The move followed Trump’s decision last month to axe 18 inspectors general in other federal agencies.
The administration is required under the law to provide 30 days’ notice to Congress before firing an inspector general and provide specific reasons for doing so. It did not do so. Grassley, a longtime defender of inspectors general and their mission established by Congress after President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, suggested he agreed with the firing of USAID inspector general Paul Martin, saying that he “wasn’t doing his job.”
But he said Trump needed to notify Congress before doing so. “I’d like to alert the president to the fact that he can abide by the law and still get rid of the people he wants to get rid of,” Grassley said. “He can put them on administrative leave for 30 days and send us a letter.”
Asked by HuffPost if he planned to alert Trump himself, Grassley said, “I just did, by talking to you.” Grassley wrote a letter to Trump asking for an explanation for his earlier firings of inspectors general but he still hasn’t received an answer. (The senator dined with the president at his Florida estate over the weekend, sharing a photo online.)
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-inspector-general-grassley_n_67ace0dbe4b0f939708cb3bb
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