After nightfall on Jan. 24, President Trump summarily dismissed as many as 17 of the most important guardians of integrity in the federal government — the inspectors general who search for fraud and abuse in each major executive department, who assure taxpayers that their money is being properly spent, and whose rigor reduces the temptation of corruption. Mr. Trump’s action was in overt defiance of a law requiring that Congress get 30 days’ notice when an inspector general is fired, along with the detailed reasons for the termination, but it was very much in keeping with the president’s imperious resistance to any form of accountability, oversight or sharing of power.
No compelling reasons for the firings were given other than a vague reference to the “changing priorities” of the new administration. Asked about the action on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said “it is the belief of this White House” that there are no limits on the president’s ability to terminate employees in his branch of government. “He is the executive of the executive branch, and therefore he has the power to fire anyone within the executive branch that he wishes to,” she said.
That’s flatly wrong. In addition to the inspectors general law, there are strong Civil Service protections in place for more than two-thirds of all federal workers, preventing arbitrary or political firings and requiring cause.
American voters gave President Trump and his party the right to push forward the agenda he campaigned on. If the president wants to shrink the federal work force, end programs he disagrees with or revamp oversight, he has the license to pursue those efforts. Yet he must do so legally and by operating inside the system of checks and balances that has guided the country since its founding.
The first two weeks into his second tour in the White House have seen so many lines crossed in the pursuit of his agenda that anyone who believes in the Constitution and honest governance should be worried: Many of Mr. Trump’s first assertions of executive power blatantly exceed what is legally granted. He and his supporters have sought to undermine those best positioned to check his overreaches of power. And he is moving to eliminate the tools of accountability in government in quick order.
It’s not just that he sees the U.S. government work force as his personal employees who should be loyal servants; he appears ready to suppress any critique or even allow anyone to bear witness to what his administration is really doing. Mr. Trump has an unusual gift for evading criticism: The Democrats are just the angry opposition. Republicans who stand up to him are just RINOs. Journalists who expose misconduct are purveyors of fake news. Government officials who warn of his actions are part of the “deep state.”
It’s much harder to dodge accountability for his actions when concerns or opposition come from roles that are legally or constitutionally protected in order to preserve their independence, such as judges, prosecutors and inspectors general — the parts of the government that he now hopes to circumvent, remove or bend to his wishes.
Civil servants are expected to carry out the directives from the legislative, judicial and executive branches, but Mr. Trump wants them to be subservient to him. He is trying to fundamentally ignore the constitutional checks and balances carefully built into the American system of government by its founders, and he is unwilling to follow or obey the rules of accountability and oversight that past presidents of both parties have adhered to.
And Americans are already getting a glimpse of what Mr. Trump and his administration would do with fewer guardrails: By unilaterally declaring the end of birthright citizenship, for example, he is expressing disdain for the decades of judicial precedent that have supported the clear wording of the 14th Amendment; he is trying to make his opinion the law of the land. By refusing to spend money already appropriated by Congress, as his administration did on Monday, he is telling the legislative branch that its constitutional power of the purse can be set aside at whim. And all those in a position to question his arrogation of authority and hold him to account will find themselves unemployed or under fire.
Late on Monday night, for example, the White House fired two Democratic members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the chair of the National Labor Relations Board, describing them as “far-left appointees with radical records.” These officials, who would almost certainly be strong critics of the administration’s attempts to reduce civil rights and labor protections, do not work for Mr. Trump; they are board members of independent agencies, approved by the Senate, and their terms are not up. The Supreme Court ruled in 1935 that presidents cannot dismiss members of independent agencies like these simply over policy differences, and the court declined a chance to overrule that precedent last year.
The administration also fired more than a dozen prosecutors in the Justice Department simply because they had worked on the criminal investigations of Mr. Trump, a particularly egregious example of his determination to combine personal retribution with future deterrence. Beyond the trampling of Civil Service rules for career employees — the termination notices cited no improper conduct or poor performance — the firings sent an unmistakable message to law enforcement authorities throughout the government: Ignore any malfeasance or corruption you may come across in Trump world, and do not even think of starting an investigation or a prosecution, because we will find a way to fire you and stop your work.
Mr. Trump’s steamrolling of all official scrutiny is beginning to draw criticism even from within his own party, which has largely stood by as he has undermined norms and values that used to be considered bipartisan. Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, along with his Democratic counterpart, Richard Durbin, sent a letter on Tuesday to the president demanding a detailed and case-specific explanation for the firing of each inspector general. “This is a matter of public and congressional accountability and ensuring the public’s confidence in the inspector general community, a sentiment shared more broadly by other members of Congress,” the two senators wrote.
It’s vital that those members of Congress, from both parties, stand up to Mr. Trump’s early moves. Their branch of government is no less in danger of losing its autonomy than the executive watchdogs are. Several Republican senators have already been coerced into abandoning their better judgment on some of Mr. Trump’s most unqualified cabinet nominees, as Joni Ernst of Iowa learned when she first voiced reservations about Pete Hegseth after he was nominated for defense secretary. The pressure campaign directed toward her by the MAGA world and the Iowa Republican Party is a principal reason she changed course and Mr. Hegseth is now running the Pentagon. The president has repeatedly threatened to use recess appointments to bypass the Senate entirely if it rejects his choices.
But it is not just the power to advise and consent that Mr. Trump has put at risk. In the last few days, he has also made it clear that he is prepared to override the most fundamental power given to Congress by the Constitution: the ability to appropriate tax money and determine how it is spent. On Monday the White House announced a freeze on “all federal financial assistance” like grants and loans to state agencies and nonprofit social service organizations, many of which said they were immediately locked out of the federal payment system. The week before he eliminated federal diversity and inclusion programs and halted most foreign aid spending.
After a federal judge temporarily blocked Mr. Trump’s order, the White House retreated and said the freeze was no longer in place. But there was no retreat from the administration’s misguided notion that it can rescind at will any spending authorized by Congress, which officials made it clear they still intend to pursue in different ways.
If Mr. Trump doesn’t like the way federal money is being spent, he can do what every other president has done: negotiate new spending priorities with Congress as part of the budget and appropriations process. Federal law clearly prohibits him from making that decision unilaterally. But that would mean playing by the rules and sharing power with another branch of government, a practice Mr. Trump appears to consider unnecessary.
Mr. Trump’s party, after all, controls both houses of Congress, but even Republican leaders were given no voice or even advance notice about the precipitate decisions to rescind this authorized spending. Democratic and independent members correctly said Mr. Trump was provoking a constitutional crisis and helped force the retreat by standing up to the White House. Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, said Monday’s actions were “the most direct assault on the authority of Congress” in the nation’s history. In contrast, a few Republicans expressed mild concern and many were openly supportive, willing to cede their oversight of the nation’s purse to Mr. Trump to avoid becoming the victim of his intimidation tactics. “It’s a pretty major test of separation of powers,” acknowledged Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota.
Mr. Trump is indeed testing Washington and the American people to see how far he can go in accumulating authority and in marginalizing anyone in a position to question his actions. It is a test the Constitution cannot afford to lose.
