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President Donald Trump speaks after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A group of federal watchdogs who were booted from their posts last month by President Donald Trump have teamed up to sue his administration — saying the firings violated “unambiguous federal statutes” — in a joint legal bid to get their jobs back.
“President Trump’s attempt to eliminate a crucial and longstanding source of impartial, non-partisan oversight of his administration is contrary to the rule of law,” the group’s complaint states. “Plaintiffs are longtime public servants appointed by and serving under presidents of both parties (including President Trump). Each plaintiff has a long record of integrity and a determination to provide effective and strong oversight of the administration of trillions of dollars in federal spending and the conduct of millions of federal employees.”
The group of watchdogs suing the Trump administration includes former Department of Defense inspector general Robert Storch; former Department of Veterans Affairs IG Michael Missal; former Department of Health and Human Services IG Christi Grimm; former State Department IG Cardell Richardson; former Department of Education IG Sandra Bruce; former Department of Agriculture IG Phyllis Fong; former Labor Department IG Larry Turner; and Small Business Administration IG Michael Ware. They’re being represented by David Ogden, a Barack Obama-era deputy attorney general, and former solicitor general Seth Waxman.
“Plaintiffs bring this action seeking a declaration that their purported removals were legal nullities, and so they remain the duly appointed IGs of their respective agencies, unless and until the President lawfully removes them in compliance with [federal law],” the group’s complaint says, citing a federal statute regarding government appointments, which states that presidents must notify Congress 30 days before terminating an inspector general and provide reasons as to why they are being fired.
The law also states that inspectors general are required to be in power “without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability in accounting, auditing, financial analysis, law, management analysis, public administration, or investigations.” Trump has yet to say whether the IGs who were fired failed to meet this criteria.
Several of the ex-watchdogs worked as “apolitical watchdogs” for presidents of both parties, including Trump in his first term, their complaint points out.
In fact, Trump even nominated one of them.
“Hannibal ‘Mike’ Ware assumed the role of Inspector General of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in April 2018 following his nomination by President Trump and confirmation by the Senate,” the complaint highlights.
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During Ware’s tenure as SBA IG, his office reportedly issued over 170 reports, made more than 800 recommendations for improvements to the SBA’s programs and operations, delivered a “monetary impact” of over $14 billion and was “responsible” for another $30 billion being either seized or returned directly to the U.S. Treasury, the complaint says.
Ware and the others allege that despite everything they have done, they were fired and immediately “cut off” from accessing government systems — including their email accounts, government-issued phones, “Personal Identity Verification” cards and computers. The plaintiffs say they were also “physically disabled” from entering the government buildings where they were assigned to work.
“These actions have had their intended effect of making it impossible for the IGs to perform their lawful duties,” their complaint says. “Because the purported removals were illegal and hence a nullity, the actions just described constituted illegal interference with the IGs’ official duties.”
The watchdogs allege that they were fired just four days into Trump’s second term, with his appointees sending “two-sentence” emails to each of them, saying his administration was terminating them on account of “changing priorities.” They are seeking injunctive relief to bar the Trump administration “or anyone working in concert with them from impeding the lawful exercise of the duties of their offices,” their complaint says. If Trump wants to keep the IGs out of power, the group urges him to try it legally.
“Neither President Trump nor anyone else in his administration has claimed that the purported removals complied with the IG Act,” the complaint says. “Instead, President Trump falsely claimed after the fact that such removals were ‘a very common thing to do’ and ‘a very standard thing to do, very much like the U.S. attorneys.””
Firings have become a normal occurrence since Trump took office last month, with numerous officials and enforcers being axed in multiple departments via one or two sentence emails.
On Monday, the White House reported that Cathy Harris, who is on the three-member Merit Systems Protection Board, which protects terminated federal workers from “partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices,” according to its government website, was being fired — along with its vice chair, Ray Limon. Harris responded to her termination with a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, calling it “unlawful” and having “no basis in fact.”
“It is in direct conflict with nearly a century of precedent that defines the standard for removal of independent agency officials and upholds the legality of virtually identical for-cause removal protections for members of independent agencies,” Harris’ complaint says.
Trump doubled down this week on his attempt to boot the Biden administration’s whistleblower advocate, Hampton Dellinger, from his post at the Office of Special Counsel, filing motions for an “immediate administrative stay” of a stay — in both the district and appeals court — that was granted on Monday night that allowed Dellinger keep his job while the courts weigh whether his firing was legal.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a 2011 Barack Obama appointee, ruled that Dellinger is allowed to remain in his position as head of the Office of Special Counsel until Thursday while requests for a more concrete solution are weighed. The move came after Dellinger, who was appointed by Biden in February 2024 to enforce whistleblower laws, filed a lawsuit Monday in the District of Columbia days after being fired by the Trump administration, according to his federal complaint.
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Dellinger’s suit was filed less than a week after an employee of the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency that enforces labor laws and protects workers’ rights to organize, sued Trump in federal court after being fired in January.
Gwynne A. Wilcox, a Biden appointee who filed her complaint on Feb. 5, was terminated in what she claims was a violation of the National Labor Relations Act, which allows the president to remove board members only in cases of “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause” — and only after “notice and hearing,” according to Wilcox’s complaint.
A White House official told Politico last week that Wilcox was among a group of “far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law” who was fired by the Trump administration. “They have no place as senior appointees in the Trump Administration, which was given a mandate by the American people to undo the radical policies they created,” the official said.