Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on Sunday blasted President Donald Trump for his decision to fire 18 inspectors general late Friday night and accused the president of breaking the law.
“To write off this clear violation of law by saying, ‘Well,’ that ‘technically, he broke law.’ Yeah, he broke the law,” Schiff told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
His comment was responding to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who earlier in the program told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that “technically, yeah,” Trump had violated the Inspector General Act, which Congress amended to strengthen protections from undue termination for inspectors general.
“I’m not, you know, losing a whole lot of sleep that he wants to change the personnel out. I just want to make sure that he gets off to a good start,” Graham added.
In a later interview on CNN, Graham defended Trump more forcefully, saying, “Yes, I think he should have done that.”
“He feels like the government hasn’t worked very well for the American people. These watchdog folks did a pretty lousy job. He wants some new eyes on Washington. And that makes sense to me,” he added.
But Schiff pushed back on that notion, warning that “if we don’t have good and independent inspector generals, we are going to see a swamp refill.”
He added, “It may be the president’s goal here … to remove anyone that’s going to call the public attention to his malfeasance.”
Inspectors general serve in federal agencies as independent figures who audit and investigate their agencies when allegations of waste, fraud and abuse arise.
On Friday, Trump fired at least 18 inspectors general, including those in the Defense Department, State Department, Health and Human Services Department and the Department of Labor.
On Saturday, multiple lawmakers — on both sides of the aisle — pointed out that Trump’s move appeared to violate the law, which requires presidents to give Congress a 30-day notice and substantive reasoning for the firing before an inspector general is removed from their post.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NBC News in a statement Saturday that he’d “like further explanation from President Trump” about his justification for the firings.
“There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30 day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress,” Grassley said.
And Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate minority leader, slammed Trump’s decision in a speech on the Senate floor Saturday morning.
“Yesterday, in the dark of night, President Trump fired at least 12 independent inspector generals at important federal agencies across the administration. This is a chilling purge,” Schumer said.
He added, “These dismissals are possibly in violation of federal law, which requires Congress to have 30 days notice of any intent to fire inspectors general.”
On Saturday, a White House official told NBC News that a lot of the firing decisions happen with “legal counsel looking over them.” But they added they were checking with the White House counsel’s office, though they didn’t think the administration had broken any laws.
It’s not clear how Congress can address this apparent violation of the law, but on Sunday, Schiff said, “We have the power of the purse. We have the power right now to confirm or not confirm people for Cabinet positions that control agencies or would control agencies whose inspector generals have just been fired.”
So far, all but one of Trump’s Cabinet appointments have sailed through the Senate with the full backing of the Senate GOP caucus, which holds a 53-47 majority in that chamber. Just one nominee — new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — lost three GOP votes in his final confirmation vote, though he won a majority with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.
