The Trump administration has reversed its attempt to eliminate funding for a key government oversight group, following calls from Capitol Hill to release the congressionally approved money and protect federal watchdog activities.
The defunding of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) — an umbrella organization for 72 inspectors general across government — was unrelated to the federal government shutdown, and the office’s 25 employees have remained furloughed since the start of the fiscal year. But workers were told Monday night that the Office of Management and Budget had changed course and would release nearly $4.3 million, allowing the staff to return to work, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the chairs of the Appropriations and Judiciary committees, respectively, said the release of funding was welcome after they had previously questioned the decision to defund the office. They also said OMB would conduct a review of CIGIE’s activities, though they did not specify what that meant.
“We are pleased that following our continued outreach, OMB is releasing the funding that Congress provided for CIGIE to continue its vital work,” Collins and Grassley said in a statement.
OMB did not respond to requests for comment about the reversal.
CIGIE acts essentially as a watchdog of the watchdogs — providing training, peer reviews and cross-agency oversight work for inspectors general. It also runs oversight.gov, where whistleblowers can disclose wrongdoing and inspector general reports are shared publicly, as well as other IG websites.
In past years, CIGIE received funding through direct appropriations and from payments from IG offices. The group’s budget request was $24.2 million for the fiscal year that ended in September.
Since it lost its funding, several websites have gone down and have not been fully replaced, removing from public view information about waste, fraud and abuse. Some agencies have stood up their own, sometimes incomplete, websites. It is unclear what will happen to the network of IG websites once CIGIE workers return to the office.
The dismantling of CIGIE shocked many former inspectors general who decried the Trump administration for undermining IGs and their work. Early in his second term in office, President Donald Trump fired government watchdogs at 19 agencies and later installed partisans in what have traditionally been nonpartisan positions.
Trump officials have repeatedly criticized inspectors general. After OMB decided to stop funding CIGIE, spokesman Armen Tooloee called IGs corrupt.
“Inspectors general are meant to be impartial watchdogs identifying waste and corruption on behalf of the American people,” Tooloee said in a statement in September. “Unfortunately, they have become corrupt, partisan, and in some cases, have lied to the public. The American people will no longer be funding this corruption.”
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