Even as President Trump fired a string of government watchdogs early in his second term, René L. Rocque, who investigates waste and abuse in the Education Department, decided to put her head down and keep doing her job.
The department stonewalled her request for details about how the Trump administration’s cuts were affecting students and teachers, but Ms. Rocque kept going. In May, she notified Congress that she was facing “unreasonable denials and repeated delays.”
The administration, it seems, was fed up. Within days, Mr. Trump ordered Ms. Rocque demoted and gave the job of acting inspector general to someone else.
The message to thousands of workers in inspectors general offices was clear: Be careful what you choose to investigate or you might be out of a job.
Mr. Trump has fired or demoted more than 20 inspectors general or acting inspectors general since he took office six months ago, hobbling offices that for years have served as a check on waste, fraud and abuse. In the 2024 fiscal year alone, the inspectors general fired by Mr. Trump identified more than $50 billion in waste and abuse, according to a congressional report whose findings were confirmed by The New York Times.
In nearly a dozen interviews with The Times, current and former staff members said there was a pervasive fear inside inspectors general offices that simply doing their jobs could get them fired. One former employee said the interim leader at his office was “paralyzed with fear”; another said his office was nervous about going forward with investigations that could prompt political blowback; a third rattled off a list of agency staff members who had quit, jeopardizing investigations.
Many of those interviewed requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly or because they feared retribution.
The long-term effects of Mr. Trump’s drive to eradicate oversight are still coming into focus. But the situation inside the offices, which were created during the Carter administration and are meant to act independently of the president, provides a glimpse into the chilling effect this year’s purge has had on government accountability. And the crackdown comes as many of the checks on Mr. Trump’s presidential power are evaporating.
“There is pervasive concern about the nature of their work going forward,” said Mark Greenblatt, who was the inspector general for the Interior Department before Mr. Trump fired him in January. Mr. Trump had appointed Mr. Greenblatt to two different inspectors general posts during his first term, but he was nevertheless swept up in the latest firings.
“If they say things that are critical, will leadership get fired?” Mr. Greenblatt asked. “Will folks deeper down in the food chain get fired? Those are real questions that people are contemplating right now.”
One current investigator described the dilemma for inspectors general as walking a tightrope. On one hand, Congress still expects and demands robust inquiries that uncover waste and abuse. On the other, there is now a widespread understanding that certain topics — such as cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency — are off limits.
Many inspectors general offices are now operating without a permanent leader, raising concerns that the interim leaders’ investigations will not command the same authority.
Taylor Rogers, a White House assistant press secretary, brushed aside concerns about the state of inspectors general offices. She argued that the president had begun hiring new investigators to replace those he removed who, she said, will bring “integrity and transparency” to government.
“President Trump has selected highly qualified and accomplished individuals to identify the mismanagement of funds and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,” she said.
Among Mr. Trump’s appointees is Anthony D’Esposito, a former Republican congressman from New York, to be the inspector general for the Labor Department. Mr. D’Esposito, a former police officer, lost his re-election bid after The Times reported that he had added a woman with whom he was having an affair to his office’s payroll and employed his longtime fiancée’s daughter as special assistant.
Another of Mr. Trump’s nominees is Thomas Bell, a Republican lawyer who has been tapped to lead the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Inspector General. He has been general counsel for House Republicans, and previously helped lead an investigation into Planned Parenthood.
Inspectors general act as a first line of defense against corruption, waste and self-enrichment in government, auditing programs and investigating complaints about fraud and abuse. They have traditionally been unafraid to take on high-ranking government officials and large companies, investigating the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Pfizer and Merck.
The inspector general for the Health and Human Services Department made more than 1,200 criminal referrals in a six-month period. Work by the Energy Department’s inspector general resulted in the agency clawing back $100 million from a grantee under investigation for allegedly exporting semiconductor equipment to a Chinese company. The inspector general at the Defense Department helped uncover fraudulent practices targeting Gold Star families, leading to a 12-year prison sentence.
In the 2024 fiscal year, the government’s watchdogs recovered nearly $15 billion through investigations, with another $35 billion in potential savings if agencies follow their recommendations.
But one of Mr. Trump’s first acts in his second term was to fire the inspectors general at many of the largest agencies in the federal government. Dogged by a whistle-blower who went to an inspector general during his first term, Mr. Trump was encouraged to carry out the firings by the Heritage Foundation, which recommended he remove elements of government that could potentially stand in the way of his agenda.
In 2020, Mr. Trump fired the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael K. Atkinson, after he received a whistle-blower complaint that played a key role in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. The incident underscored the danger, in the view of Mr. Trump’s allies, posed by inspectors general who assert their independence.
When the firings began in earnest at the start of this year, Paul Martin, who was the inspector general for the United States Agency for International Development, had a message for his staff.
He told his colleagues to keep charging ahead and avoid the fear that might cause them to pull punches. “Don’t change what you would typically do under any other administration,” Mr. Martin said, according to two people familiar with his comments.
Days later, Mr. Martin and his team put out a report detailing how the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S.A.I.D. could result in nearly $500 million of waste, because food intended for emergency assistance was spoiling at ports, at warehouses and on ships at sea.
Then he, too, joined the ranks of the fired.
The aid agency is now dismantled, with some functions transferred to the State Department. The staff of the inspector general’s office, which investigates the misuse of foreign aid, was kicked out of its Washington offices, but continues to work.
As part of its oversight of foreign aid, the office’s 40 criminal investigators across the globe have undertaken 210 active investigations into corruption, diversion and abuse connected to U.S.-funded programs.
The routine work at many inspectors general offices continues apace, despite the cuts. Thousands of workers continue to churn out reports. One current employee described the mind-set of investigators as committed, despite the challenging environment.
This year, for example, the inspector general for the Health and Human Services Department has audited Maryland’s adult day care facilities, the Defense Department’s inspector general has produced a classified report on lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the Justice Department’s inspector general produced a report on cancer screening practices in prisons.
The offices themselves “didn’t go away,” Andrew Cannarsa, the executive director of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, said in congressional testimony this year. “Their leadership was removed. So we’re proud that the staff that’s there and the leadership that has stepped up has kept that oversight going.”
The interviews with The Times produced similar findings to closed-door interviews conducted by Congress. A report written by Senate Democrats detailed how the fired inspectors general had produced more government savings than Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and contained numerous interviews with current I.G. staff.
One staff member told investigators that there was now “uncertainty as to quite frankly whether we will continue to exist, whether the department will continue to exist and what resources we will have going forward.”
A whistle-blower told Congress that Mr. Trump’s treatment of inspectors general was “impacting morale, productivity and independence.” The whistle-blower added that “people are feeling like their work is totally halted,” with “historically low work output.”
A second whistle-blower described morale in the office as “basically in the toilet; everybody is terrified that they’re getting fired.”
“Folks are rattled,” another inspector general employee testified. “I’ve never heard a line-level auditor say, ‘Should I be worried about my job? … Is someone going to post my family on X? …’ These are questions that have never been asked, because frankly they were unthinkable.”
Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the homeland security committee, said Mr. Trump had tried to intimidate anyone in the government who might seek to hold him accountable.
“President Trump’s firings of these inspectors general put the work of these offices at risk, it undermines their independence and it sends a message of intimidation to anyone else who is considering criticizing the Trump administration,” Mr. Peters said.
There is one major test that many in the inspector general community are watching: The Pentagon’s acting inspector general has undertaken a review of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s disclosure on the Signal messaging app of the timing of U.S. fighter jets’ airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
It is perhaps the most politically sensitive work any inspector general’s office has taken on during the second Trump administration. The review is being closely watched as a test case to see how tough inspectors general feel they can be under Mr. Trump.
Steven Stebbins, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general who took over after Mr. Trump’s firing of Robert Storch, has said only that he is undertaking a review, not an investigation. As such, Mr. Stebbins will examine policies and procedures and determine whether they were followed. A full investigation, by contrast, would entail a formal inquiry into specific allegations of wrongdoing.
“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the secretary of defense and other D.O.D. personnel complied with D.O.D. policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business,” Mr. Stebbins wrote in a notification letter to Mr. Hegseth.
Mr. Greenblatt said Mr. Stebbins was a “total pro” who would produce serious work, but he added that it was unclear whether the office was doing a full investigation in addition to the review.
“If I were the I.G. at Interior, and equivalent fact patterns happened at Interior, I probably would have opened an investigation along with the evaluation,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that people could question whether this is a safer course, and they choose the safer course because of that.”