Eight former inspectors general who were summarily fired by President Donald J. Trump last month filed a lawsuit on Wednesday asking a judge to declare their removals illegal and order the government to reinstate them.
“The purported firings violated unambiguous federal statutes — each enacted by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by the president — to protect inspectors general from precisely this sort of interference with the discharge of their critical, nonpartisan duties,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit asserts that the plaintiffs remain the lawful inspectors general of their agencies because Mr. Trump’s dismissals broke the law. It asks for an injunction requiring the executive branch to allow them to return to work and awarding them back pay.
Four days after Mr. Trump returned to office last month, the White House notified as many as 17 inspectors general in tersely worded emails that they were being terminated because of “changing priorities.”
Those were all in direct conflict with statutory restrictions on firing such officials in the Inspector General Act of 1978 and strengthened by lawmakers in the bipartisan Securing Inspectors General Act of 2022.
That statute says that before an inspector general is removed, the president must provide Congress with 30 days’ advance notice, including a written explanation with “the substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for any such removal.”
The plaintiffs were Robert P. Storch, who was dismissed as the inspector general of the Defense Department; Michael J. Missal of Veterans Affairs; Christi A. Grimm of Health and Human Services; Cardell K. Richardson Sr. of State; Sandra D. Bruce of Education; Phyllis K. Fong of Agriculture; Larry D. Turner of Labor; and Hannibal Ware, known as Mike, of the Small Business Administration.
“The firing of the independent, nonpartisan inspectors general was a clear violation of the law,” Mr. Missal, who helped organize the lawsuit, said in an interview. “The I.G.s are bringing this action for reinstatement so that they can go back to work fighting fraud waste and abuse on behalf of the American people.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump also fired another inspector general, Paul K. Martin of U.S.A.I.D., the day after he published a report on the impact of the president’s broad-brush freeze on foreign aid spending and the firing or placing on administrative leave of much of the agency’s staff and contractors.
Mr. Martin’s report found that $489 million of food assistance from American farmers that was already at ports, in transit and in warehouses had been put at risk of spoilage and required unanticipated storage costs. He also warned that a program intended to make sure that humanitarian assistance in chaotic regions did not get diverted to terrorists had stopped functioning.
Mr. Martin was fired via a terse email from the White House, Mr. Missal said. Like the earlier round of firings, Mr. Martin’s ouster was not preceded by a written notice to Congress with a detailed rationale 30 days ahead of time.
The lawsuit said that “despite the obvious illegality of these purported firings,” the agencies had cut off access to the plaintiffs’ government email accounts and computer systems, government-issued phones, work computers and identity cards that allowed them to enter their offices.
“These actions have had their intended effect of making it impossible for the I.G.s to perform their lawful duties,” the complaint said. “Because the purported removals were illegal and hence a nullity, the actions just described constituted illegal interference with the I.G.s’ official duties.”
The inspectors general are being represented by a group of lawyers at a major firm, Wilmer Hale. Their complaint was signed by Seth P. Waxman, who was the solicitor general in the Clinton administration.
The post 8 Inspectors General Fired by Trump File Lawsuit Seeking Reinstatement appeared first on New York Times.
