Shortly before President Trump’s inauguration, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) announced with great fanfare the founding of a bipartisan Senate Inspector General Caucus. Caucuses are informal congressional groups designed to advocate for policies and practices in specific subjects.
Ernst said the Inspector General Caucus would help “to ensure the executive branch watchdogs are empowered to properly identify and mitigate waste, fraud, and abuse.”
In the months leading up to its formation, I served as the chair of the Council of Inspectors General and worked closely with Ernst’s staff on the concept of the caucus to support inspectors general. After proposing the caucus idea to her staff, I met with Ernst to gauge her interest in championing it.
The meeting could not have gone better. She fully embraced the vision of a caucus to work with the inspector general community to improve the federal government for the American public.
In rolling out the caucus in January, Ernst heaped praise on inspectors general, saying they “serve a vital role in uncovering waste in Washington and must be empowered to continue looking out for taxpayers.”
“From identifying billion-dollar boondoggles to exposing a federal workforce that is permanently out-of-office, their work has been invaluable in my decade-long mission to uncover waste and make Washington squeal,” she added.
She credited inspectors general with providing “key details” for her “$2 trillion roadmap for the Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate waste” as well as a ”telework report that exposed an absent federal workforce that has abused locality pay to fleece taxpayers out of billions of dollars.”
“I look forward to this caucus continuing to allow IGs to do tremendous work and find more ways to downsize government and eliminate inefficiencies,” she concluded.
Ten days later, President Trump fired 17 inspectors general, including me. What was the response of the Senate Inspector General Caucus? Not much.
Ernst’s office reportedly waited four days before providing a milquetoast comment, saying she “looks forward to learning more about this decision and working with the president to nominate replacements, so the important work … can continue with full transparency.”
That is Washington gobbledygook for when an official desperately wants to avoid commenting on the merits.
When the president fired the inspectors general at USAID less than 24 hours after they issued a report with negative findings, nominated farcically unqualified and disqualified candidates for vacant inspector general positions, removed an acting inspector general simply for doing her job and defunded the Council of Inspectors General, Ernst and the Senate Inspector General Caucus were silent.
In contrast with the pomp and circumstance surrounding the creation of the caucus, and even though the inspector general community has been completely decapitated since January, there is no evidence that the caucus has done anything. It appears to be all talk, no action.
Ernst had an opportunity to do something significant to support the inspector general community. When word got out that she might not run for reelection, the White House and Senate Republicans were reportedly concerned that another Republican Senate seat would be up for grabs, a situation the White House was keen on avoiding. So senior White House officials, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, “implored” Ernst to run again.
Ernst could have used this opportunity to support the inspector general community, both in the White House and the Senate. She could have used her leverage in that moment to pressure the White House to stop firing inspectors general for conducting fair, objective and independent oversight, even if the White House disagrees with their findings. In the Senate, she could have blocked inspector general nominees who are unqualified or had disqualifying backgrounds (or both).
There is no evidence that she did either of those or anything else to support inspectors general.
Now that she has announced she will not seek reelection, she should be even more free to act on principle and therefore has yet another opportunity to support the oversight community.
This is a special moment, in which a senator has the chance to have a profound positive impact on an issue she cares about. Will she do it?
Mark Lee Greenblatt is a former inspector general of the U.S. Department of the Interior and chair of the Council of Inspectors General, as well as the author of “Valor: Unsung Heroes from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front.”