In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, Congress enacted a series of reforms designed to strengthen federal oversight, creating new bodies such as the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. The 1978 Inspector General Act gave inspectors general a dual mandate — auditing federal programs and investigating fraud, waste, and abuse — and a dual audience: they report both to agency leadership and to Congress, an arrangement designed to insulate them from the departments they police. More than 70 inspector general offices now operate across the federal government, and collectively they identify billions of dollars in potential savings and recoveries each year, according to the council that coordinates the offices. According to NOTUS, in reporting highlighted by Alternet, President Donald Trump is substantially undermining that post-Watergate system during his second presidency.

Reporting for NOTUS, journalists Natalie Alms and Eric Katz write: "The once-independent system that Congress established after Watergate has radically transformed in Trump's second term. Trump's unprecedented firing of nearly 20 inspectors general has unraveled the firewalls government's ombudsmen have operated under for decades. The new watchdogs are erasing the lines between agency leadership and their own watchdog offices, Office of Inspector General employees told NOTUS, openly suggesting they should work hand-in-glove with the Trump administration to advance its goals…. Trump has installed former political appointees from the same agencies they're now overseeing, a co-author of Project 2025, and a Republican congressman into watchdog roles across the government."

Alms and Katz add: "Those IGs have boosted the president and his appointees in ways that directly contravene the statutory independence of their offices, 11 current and former staffers told NOTUS."

The overhaul began with removals on a scale not previously seen. In a single Friday-night action in January 2025, the administration dismissed at least 17 inspectors general without the 30 days' advance notice and written reasons to Congress required under the Inspector General Act, drawing objections from lawmakers in both parties, including Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a longtime champion of inspector general independence. Trump had also removed several inspectors general during his first term, including at the State Department and within the intelligence community. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy blueprint for restructuring the federal executive, was publicly distanced from by Trump during the 2024 campaign. The contest now largely plays out in the courts and in Congress: several of the removed inspectors general have sued over their dismissals, and legislative proposals to strengthen removal protections have repeatedly failed to advance in past Congresses. A related test has already reached the Supreme Court, which in May 2025 allowed the removal of Office of Special Counsel head Hampton Dellinger to take effect while his legal challenge continued — a case involving one of the same post-Watergate oversight bodies at issue in the NOTUS reporting. Dellinger resigned days later.

Among those interviewed for the article was a senior OIG official, who spoke to NOTUS on condition of anonymity. "All the adults have left the room," the official said. "All these new IGs are lining up behind political leadership as if they're lapdogs." The official said that remaining staff at watchdog agencies are "scared to death to do anything," adding: "So for the most part, they're just sitting on their hands trying to lay low."

The NOTUS reporting points to recent events at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as an example of how much the federal watchdog system is changing under Trump. According to NOTUS sources, VA Inspector General Cheryl L. Mason, who previously chaired the department's Board of Veterans' Appeals, held up a move to new office space so that she could have a private bathroom in her office — a step that Alms and Katz note is the "kind of potentially pricey request that government watchdogs typically investigate."

Employees inside the VA IG's office described the impact on their work. "It's been incredibly challenging to continue doing the work we're doing," one employee told NOTUS, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another employee, also quoted anonymously, said: "She wanted to make sure the message of everything we did was part of every agreement, promise or whatever she had with the secretary. If you believe in independent oversight, that's not what we were doing."