Senate Dems slam USAID inspector general’s firing as doing more harm than good on curbing waste

A pair of Senate Democrats slammed President Trump’s firing of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) inspector general, calling on the administration to bring him back along with other watchdogs who were terminated in prior weeks. 

Sens. Gary Peters (Mich.) and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) say the terminations of USAID Inspector General Paul Martin and others in late January were illegal, as the mandatory 30-day notice period was not provided to Congress. 

“Not only is this apparent retaliatory firing illegal under federal law, it contradicts the administration’s purported desire to curb government waste, fraud, and abuse. Inspectors General are, by law, responsible for conducting oversight that improves government efficiency and helps recover billions of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote in a Thursday letter to the White House and the General Services Administration (GSA) that was shared with The Hill. 

Martin was fired Tuesday around 6 p.m. local time and was not given a reason for his termination, The Hill reported. His termination came just a day after his office issued a six-page report that was critical of the Trump administration’s foreign assistance freeze. 

The report said the State Department’s halt on foreign aid programs and the reduction of USAID’s personnel posed “risks and challenges to the safeguarding and distribution of USAID’s $8.2 billion in obligated but undisbursed humanitarian assistance.” 

“Specifically, USAID’s existing oversight controls — albeit with previously identified shortcomings — are now largely nonoperational given these recent directives and personnel actions,” the USAID inspector general’s office wrote. 

The office said in the report that “recent widespread staffing reductions across the Agency, particularly within BHA [Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance], coupled with uncertainty about the scope of foreign assistance waivers and permissible communications with implementers, has degraded USAID’s ability to distribute and safeguard taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance.”

The president is required to give a 30-day notice to Congress of any intention to either fire or transfer an inspector general and provide reasons why. No such notice was given to Congress regarding Martin, according to Shaheen and Peters. 

“It appears clear that the USAID Inspector General was fired in retaliation for doing his job: issuing an advisory warning on the national security risks and detailing the waste that could result from the administration’s recent stop work orders, personnel decisions, and the closing of USAID buildings,” they wrote in the letter. 

Inspectors general perform audits and investigations into fraud, abuse and waste within government agencies they are tasked to oversee. They publish findings of their offices’ probes and can serve in multiple administrations. 

The Trump administration terminated at least 17 inspectors general nearly three weeks ago, including watchdogs from the Energy Department, Department of Defense, State Department. 

The pair of senators also said in the letter that staff for the USAID inspector general were barred from having access to their office by the GSA on Tuesday, hours prior to Martin’s firing. 

“Inspector General Martin and all Inspectors General fired in violation of the law should be reinstated immediately and authorized OIG staff must be allowed to access their office space to continue their critical oversight work,” Shaheen and Peters said. 

The Hill has reached out to the White House and the GSA for comment.