Watchdogs at Pentagon, VA Fired in Purge of Inspectors General Across Federal Government

Yahoo

28-01-2025

Independent watchdogs at the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs appeared Monday to be among the estimated 18 inspectors general fired by President Donald Trump on Friday.
A full list has yet to be released, but officials for the Defense Department confirmed that DoD Inspector General Robert Storch had been fired. And while the VA declined to comment on the dismissals, a note on its inspector general's website confirmed that VA Inspector General Michael Missal also is among those who was terminated.
Trump's firings -- which violated a 2022 law that requires that Congress be notified in advance -- have sown confusion and apprehension in the federal offices responsible for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. Both Storch and Missal have overseen investigations in those agencies of issues such as the botched handling of organs, Navy SEAL training safety, misconduct at veterans facilities, and VA bonuses.
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DoD spokeswoman Mollie Halpern told Military.com on Monday that Principal Deputy Inspector General Steven Stebbins is now serving as the acting inspector general at the department.
A spokesman for the VA's Office of Inspector General said that the deputy inspector general, David Case, would be stepping into the role until a replacement is named.
"Currently, we are not commenting on the status of the position of inspector general. However, the VA OIG wants to reassure veterans, taxpayers and Congress that our nationwide staff of auditors, inspectors and investigators remain committed to the mission of serving veterans and the public by conducting meaningful independent oversight of VA," the office said in a statement.
As of Monday, the Pentagon had updated its website, but Storch's biography page was still online as of publication. Missal's also remained; however, the VA placed a statement on Missal's page saying he was "no longer at the department" and that the page was still up for historical purposes.
Federal law requires the administration to notify Congress 30 days before removing an inspector general. In 2020, Trump provided that notice before firing the State Department's inspector general, but this time he appears to have ignored a law of which he clearly is aware.
The overnight dismissals prompted the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency to write to the White House advising it to consult legal counsel, given the legal notification requirement.
The letter stopped short of saying the group would take action against the administration but advised the White House to reconsider its moves.
"At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed inspectors general," wrote Hannibal Ware, the council's chairperson and inspector general for the Small Business Administration.
Storch was confirmed by the Senate in November 2022 and began work in early December.
Under his tenure, the watchdog conducted and released a number of investigations that criticized the actions and inaction of Pentagon leadership and contributed to a better understanding of several major stories that impacted troops and their families.
Inspector general investigations found that the Navy needs to do a better job of policing its use of sleep deprivation in SEAL training and that the Armed Forces Medical Examiner mismanaged the collection and handling of organs from at least 184 deceased troops -- and it wasn't effectively tracking the organs that it had kept in its care.
The watchdog also conducted investigations of issues that arose from national headlines.
In 2023 alone, the agency found that 78 service members were suspected of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government and another 44 were suspected of engaging or supporting terrorism.
It also found that Defense Department "personnel did not have the required accountability of the thousands of defense items that they received and transferred" to Ukraine as part of the massive shipments of aid that went out after the country was invaded by Russia.
A year later, it was tasked with investigating the controversial Gaza pier mission after a string of public breakdowns and operational pauses, as well as three injuries, left a lot of unanswered questions about the value the mission brought to the war-torn area.
Military.com found that the Army's watercraft elements at the heart of the operation may not have been ready for prime time after the boats that were used, which had lingered in obscurity for half a century, were suddenly tasked with one of the Pentagon's highest-profile missions in years.
Another Military.com investigation, which found abuse within the military's child care centers, service branch rules that generally prioritized protecting the institution, and minimal safeguards to guarantee accountability, also triggered an IG investigation in May 2024.
Meanwhile, Missal has served as the VA's inspector general since 2016, across three administrations. He was appointed by President Barack Obama after leading several high-profile investigations at the Justice Department, including the bankruptcy of a subprime lender that contributed to the recession and an accounting scandal at WorldCom, a long-distance phone carrier, in 2002.
In fiscal 2024, his office published 316 reports and assisted in investigations that led to the arrests of 249 individuals. It received more than 34,000 tips and complaints and conducted 393 investigations.
Among its most high-profile cases, the VA OIG exposed failings at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, that allowed a nurse to murder seven patients during the course of a year without detection.
He also found that the VA paid 182 senior executives nearly $11 million in bonus money that was meant to be used as incentive pay to retain employees in critically understaffed positions.
But he also ran afoul of VA leadership during the first Trump administration when he found that former VA Secretary Robert Wilkie disparaged a veteran who said she was sexually assaulted at a VA hospital and that he sought to undermine her credibility.
The report involved allegations that Wilkie took steps to discredit Andrea Goldstein, a Navy Reserve intelligence officer and then-adviser to the House Veterans Affairs Committee, after she said she was groped at the VA Washington DC Medical Center.
In that investigation, Missal cleared Wilkie of an allegation that he actively investigated the former service member or ordered others to dig into her background.
Missal also clashed with the VA's acting secretary in 2018 when he said his office had been blocked from accessing data on whistleblower complaints, in a possible violation of the law.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, released a statement Monday saying that Missal's firing hurts veterans by putting them at risk for "corruption and abuse of power."
"The inspector general is the most important internal watchdog that protects veterans from waste and wrongdoing," Blumenthal wrote in a news release.
"Firing him and eliminating his independent oversight is a betrayal of trust as well as violation of law. Veterans deserve that VA be held accountable to meet the highest standards of efficiency and integrity in health care, benefits and all the services it provides -- a mission the inspector general has been essential to fill," Blumenthal said in the statement.
During a confirmation hearing last week for former Rep. Doug Collins, Trump's pick to serve as VA secretary, Committee Chairman Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said the committee works closely with the VA inspector general.
"I find him valuable both to me and to the committee," Moran said, before asking Collins how he would utilize the IG office.
"Inspector[s] general play a vital role. We're not always going to agree with the outcome, but we can come to a conclusion because ... I'm one of those that believes in gathering a lot of input and then making a decision, so if you're having input from an inspector general who's looking out for the best interest of what the VA is for, then I'll be working with them," Collins said.
In January, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, launched the Inspectors General Caucus, calling their work an invaluable part of her mission to uncover waste, fraud and abuse.
"Inspectors general serve a vital role in uncovering waste in Washington and must be empowered to continue looking out for taxpayers," Ernst said.
Ernst's office did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
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