Inspectors general fired by Trump issue warning about lack of oversight

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Within days of taking office, President Trump fired more than 17 inspectors general across the federal government. It's already resulted in a lawsuit challenging the legality of the dismissals and continued protests outside federal agency buildings, like outside the Department of Health and Human Services today.

  Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, has more.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Geoff, eight of those fired inspectors general are now suing the Trump administration, seeking to be reinstated to their positions. These independent government watchdogs are a key check on waste, fraud and abuse.

  To discuss the impact, I'm joined by two of the top watchdogs fired by the president, Christi Grimm, former inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, and Robert Storch, former inspector general for the Department of Defense.

  Thank you both for being here with me today.

  You were both fired on a Friday night and the White House said that it was terminating you and other I.G.s due to changing priorities.

  Rob, did that language stick out to you?

  Robert Storch, Former Inspector General, Department of Defense: It did. It's a great question, because administrations come and go, right? And they all have their own priorities and that's fine. Elections have consequences.

  I.G.s, however, are nonpartisan independent watchdogs. So, whatever the priorities of the administration may be, we do independent oversight to look for waste, fraud and abuse and to ensure that the programs and operations of the departments we oversee are economical, that they're efficient, that they're effective.

  So that stuck out from the very beginning.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Christi, you're and Rob's inspectors general offices are two of the largest across the federal government. But when it comes to Health and Human Services, what are some of the examples of abuse and fraud that you investigated over the last few years? And how does your work impact the public?

  Christi Grimm, Former Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services: We would oversee programs run out of the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

  And some of the waste, fraud, abuse work that we have done, we do work looking at abuse, neglect in nursing homes. And so the work we did is protecting a family member that you might have living in a nursing home.

  One case is coming to mind in Tennessee where we investigated a nursing home chain, a large nursing home chain. And we found that the services they were providing were worthless and they were — nursing home residents were incurring harm,medication errors, not turning for bed ulcers, not providing the wound care that is necessary.

  Some of these residents were found in beds soaked with urine. So it touches every American. The HHS programs that we oversee and the work we did really did protect people and programs.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Rob, last year at the Department of Defense, you found that $1 billion worth of equipment, like shoulder-fired missiles, kamikaze drones, and more, that were sent to Ukraine were not properly tracked. That's just one example. But what are others that your office investigated?

• Robert Storch:

  So in the Ukraine area, for instance, we did something more than four dozen reports, programmatic oversight, looking at all aspects of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine.

  The example you mentioned is a great one, because those are amongst the most sensitive items that the United States gave to Ukraine. And we made significant findings that the department had real challenges in tracking that stuff appropriately. We made recommendations to help them to improve.

  And then, in our later reporting, we found they had improved. And the critical point is, if I or my team had been seen as partisan or advancing whatever the administration's agenda was, we never would have been able to do that hard-hitting work.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  As you both have said, you looked at abuse, fraud, waste.

  Elon Musk's team, the department of — known as the Department of Government Efficiency, is claiming that they're uncovering fraud, waste, and abuse, the same things both of you did in your role.

  So, Christi, how is DOGE's work different than yours?

• Christi Grimm:

  The missions, the stated missions, sound very similar, don't they?

  In order to prove a criminal case, that takes a long time. There are many steps from beginning to end. The work that we do is grounded in standards that govern how audits are done and investigations are done and evaluations are done. And it is painstaking and rigorous, the work that's put together, so that we may have the credibility that we have to make recommendations.

  And so the independence piece is also critical here, because, in order for us to do work that isn't viewed as partisan, we needed that independence. We are not an arm of the president. We don't implement policy. We point out where things aren't going well. We point out error rates. We recommend collection of overpayments. We identify where there are safeguards that aren't working to protect people.

• Robert Storch:

  In fact, the chair of the Council of Inspectors General actually reached out to the contacts at DOGE to try to engage with them and talk about what we do, because, if you're interested in waste, fraud and abuse, that's what our offices go after, right, and have gone after for years. And so he never heard back.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  But speaking of DOGE and Elon Musk, Elon Musk's SpaceX, spacecraft company, as well as Starlink, the satellite company, have billions worth of defense contracts. And his team is also leading mass firings that are about to hit the Pentagon as early as this week.

  What's the risk, Rob, of a weakened inspector general office as Elon Musk's team is taking over that agency?

• Robert Storch:

  I obviously can't comment on any specifics, but what I would say is, having been a prosecutor a long time and then in the I.G. community, is, the problem with conflicts of interest is that they pervert the selection process.

  What we all want as Americans is to know that, when decisions are made by government, they're made based on the merits, right? And the problem with conflicts of interest wherever they occur is that they change that calculus potentially, right? And that's why it's such a serious issue.

• Christi Grimm:

  Laura, can I jump in here?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Yes.

• Christi Grimm:

  So you asked about how cuts might affect an I.G. Office.

  I want to point to Medicare and Medicaid. Together, combined spending is circa $1.7 trillion annually. You need smart auditors, experienced auditors, investigators. Health care programs are incredibly complex. And to have these specialties within an OIG that know the programs are closely are part of the department, but — we're independent, but we have connectivity to those programs and people, it allows us to do work that is hard-hitting to deliver hard truths.

  And if you're reducing without regard and you get rid of these watchdogs and the people that work for them, I fear for some of these programs, including oversight for Medicare and Medicaid.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  When you take all of these actions together that we're talking about, the firing of more than 17 inspectors general, what do you think that this means for the long-term ability of offices like the ones that you led to provide a check on power?

• Robert Storch:

  It's deeply troubling, right?

  I mean, the message that gets sent is that the — there's not receptiveness to the sort of oversight that Christi is talking about.

• Christi Grimm:

  We're the eyes and ears of the public, and it's important to remember that. So these are the kinds of things that Americans, taxpayers need to know about what I.G.s do.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Christi Grimm, Robert Storch, thank you so much for your time.

• Robert Storch:

  Thank you for having us. Appreciate it.

• Christi Grimm:

  Thank you, Laura.

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