WASHINGTON — President Trump moved on Tuesday to oust the chief of a brand new panel of watchdogs charged with overseeing how his administration sp
WASHINGTON — President Trump moved on Tuesday to oust the chief of a brand new panel of watchdogs charged with overseeing how his administration spends trillions of taxpayer {dollars} in coronavirus pandemic aid, within the newest step in an abruptly unfolding White Home energy play over semi-independent inspectors basic throughout the federal government.
The official, Glenn A. Tremendous, has been the appearing inspector basic for the Protection Division since earlier than Mr. Trump took workplace. Final week, an umbrella group of company inspectors basic throughout the chief department named him the chairman of a brand new Pandemic Response Accountability Committee with management of an $80 million funds to police how the federal government carries out the $2 trillion coronavirus aid invoice.
However Mr. Trump has now abruptly named a distinct federal official — Sean O’Donnell, the Environmental Safety Company’s inspector basic — to be the appearing inspector basic for the Protection Division.
The transfer successfully ousted Mr. Tremendous from his function overseeing pandemic spending as effectively. Mr. Tremendous is a former Justice Division inspector basic who earned a fame for aggression and independence in scrutinizing the F.B.I.’s use of surveillance and different law-enforcement powers within the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults.
In an announcement, Dwrena Ok. Allen, a spokeswoman for the workplace of the inspector basic on the Pentagon, mentioned Mr. Trump designated Mr. O’Donnell to concurrently function the appearing chief of the workplace on Monday along with his duties on the E.P.A.
“Mr. Tremendous is not on the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee,” she mentioned.
The committee consists of 9 inspectors basic from throughout the chief department. Congress created it as a part of the coronavirus aid invoice. Mr. Tremendous had been chosen to steer it by a bigger group of inspectors basic that’s chaired by Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Division inspector basic.
Democrats instantly condemned Mr. Tremendous’s sudden removing from that function.
“This can be a main drawback,” Consultant Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat who heads the Home Armed Companies Committee, mentioned on Tuesday. “Trump desires sycophants. This results in one other epidemic: incompetence.”
Consultant Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee, blasted Mr. Trump’s actions as “a direct insult to the American taxpayers — of all political stripes — who need to be sure that their tax {dollars} are usually not squandered on wasteful boondoggles, incompetence or political favors.”
And Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the highest Democrat on the Senate Armed Companies Committee, mentioned his panel had been given no justification or rationale for Mr. Tremendous’s substitute.
“This seems to be a part of an alarming pattern by the Trump Administration to take away unbiased inspector generals and change them with the president’s loyalists,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, Mr. O’Donnell has issued stories which can be crucial of the Environmental Safety Company and the Trump appointee who leads it, Andrew R. Wheeler, who has sought to restrict Mr. O’Donnell’s authority and oversight.
For instance, on March 31, after Mr. O’Donnell’s workplace launched a report concluding that the E.P.A. failed to adequately warn communities living in proximity to certain carcinogenic chemicals of their health risks, Mr. Wheeler publicly rebuked the inspector general for its “tone and substance” and demanded that he rescind the report. Mr. O’Donnell refused.
Privately, some people within the government’s inspector general community suggested that the appointment of Mr. O’Donnell to the Pentagon post will divert his oversight from the E.P.A., which has continued to move forward with Mr. Trump’s agenda of weakening public health and environmental regulations, even as the coronavirus rages.
Mr. O’Donnell’s replacement of Mr. Fine, who remains the No. 2 official at the Pentagon’s watchdog office, does not mean that Mr. O’Donnell becomes the chairman of the pandemic oversight efforts. The larger group of inspectors general will now need to decide whom among their number to select to fill that vacancy.
Last week, in announcing Mr. Fine’s short-lived role, Mr. Horowitz had praised him as “uniquely qualified” to run oversight of “large organizations,” citing his 11 years as the top Justice Department watchdog and his four years serving as the top Pentagon one.
“The inspector general community recognizes the need for transparency surrounding, and strong and effective independent oversight of, the federal government’s spending in response to this public health crisis,” Mr. Horowitz said at the time.
Late last month, several hours after Mr. Trump signed the $2 trillion coronavirus relief and stimulus bill with fanfare on television, he issued a signing statement challenging a key safeguard congressional Democrats insisted upon as a condition of approving $500 billion in corporate bailout funds: that an inspector general be empowered to demand information about how the Treasury Department spends the money and who would be required to tell Congress if executive branch officials unreasonably balk.
In his signing statement, Mr. Trump effectively declared that he could control what information goes to Congress about any disputes over access to information about how and why the money is spent.
Then late on Friday night, Mr. Trump fired the inspector general for the intelligence community, Michael K. Atkinson, whose insistence on telling Congress about a whistle-blower complaint about Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine triggered impeachment proceedings last fall. Circumventing a law that requires 30-day notice to Congress before that official can be removed, he also placed Mr. Atkinson on immediate administrative leave.
At the same time, Mr. Trump also announced a slew of inspector general nominees, including a White House aide, Brian D. Miller, to be the watchdog over how the Treasury Department spends $500 billion in corporate relief, and Jason Abend, a Customs and Border Protection official, as the new Defense Department inspector general.
However, the Senate would need to confirm Mr. Abend before he could supplant Mr. Fine. Mr. Trump’s move to install Mr. O’Donnell as acting inspector general in the meantime effectively sidelined Mr. Fine from running coronavirus spending oversight immediately.
Mr. Trump also nominated three current and former Justice Department officials to be the new inspectors general at the C.I.A., the Education Department and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Mr. Trump also redoubled his attacks on Tuesday on the acting inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, Christi A. Grimm, in a statement on Twitter a day after she launched a report about hospitals dealing with extreme shortages in assessments as they battle the pandemic.
“President Trump has been engaged in an assault towards unbiased inspectors basic since final Friday as a way to undermine oversight of his chaotic and poor response to the coronavirus disaster,” Ms. Maloney mentioned, accusing the president of “a blatant try to degrade the independence of inspectors basic who function checks towards waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Coral Davenport, Nicholas Fandos, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.