Trump's allies sound alarm over his attacks on independent watchdogs
Trump’s allies sound alarm over his attacks on independent watchdogs
Republicans are trying to convince the president that inspectors general aren't his enemies.
By ANDREW DESIDERIO
04/28/2020 05:50 PM EDT
President Donald Trump’s recent hostility toward independent federal watchdogs has jolted the very Senate Republicans who are among his most outspoken defenders.
Two months after acquitting Trump on charges of obstructing Congress, GOP senators are sounding subtle but unmistakable alarms about Trump’s efforts to brush back lawmakers’ oversight of the government’s behemoth, $3 trillion response to the coronavirus pandemic. And their warnings have grown more urgent as Trump mounts a concerted campaign against inspectors general, one of the last functional checks on his administration’s performance.
That Lankford and other GOP senators like Chuck Grassley of Iowa have felt compelled to speak out publicly underscores the degree to which Trump has undermined routine congressional oversight — including the very mechanisms that Republicans themselves have crafted to rein in a rogue executive.
The public disapproval come as Trump faces criticism over his abrupt removal of the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, and his refusal to provide Congress with an adequate explanation, as required by law.
And without responses from the White House, GOP senators have stepped up their public rebukes of the president as they try to convince him that independent government watchdogs are his friends, not his enemies. Lankford and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) in their letter to Trump last week outlined why they think it’s in the president’s best interest to “work with IGs, not against them.”
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https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/28/chuck-grassley-donald-trump-federal-watchdogs-215504
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