Host lets start off with the role of the Inspector General. One of the best parts of what is going on now is most people have no idea what the Inspector General is. They are a unique role that was established during the 1970s in andonse to Financial Issues perceptions of financial mismanagement in executive agencies by congress. A series of laws were passed that dealt with ways to reduce waste. Established the first 12 Inspector Generals. Of clearing fraud, waste, and abuse was one aspect. They were to look at the economy and efficiency of federal agencies. There are now 75 inspectors general. They look at three different functions they fulfill in agencies. One that has been getting all the press is investigation. That is not looking at wrongdoing. Refer cases to the department of justice. The second is financial auditing. A big part of the actual motivations for the act in the beginning. Finding better use of funds and ways to improve internal controls and improve Financial Management. The third is looking at Program Improvements for economy efficiency. There are separate units within each Inspector General. The investigators are the ones that look for the potential and follow up on whistleblowers that come in two hotlines. Hotlines bring up hundreds of issues. Needs to be a vetting process to find out which are the most serious to look at. The other unique thing about the Inspector General is that it is nested in the shared powers of theconstitution in that congress and president share the the three appoint dozen or so that are senate confirmed. To ensure that they have adequate resources, and to ensure that the agency follow up on recommendations. Thousands of recommendations are made to improve agencies each year by inspectors general. Somebody needs to implement them. General should have the Institutional Knowledge to work with the other people in the agencies that it needs to in order to implement the recommendations to make improvements. The role itself, is that a partisan role . Guest absolutely not. That was a key aspect of this unusual shared powers. The inspectors general are responsible to the agency had and congress concurrently. Their reports go up from their website to both. They have two masters. Thats why people talk about the fact that they walk the fence between two masters. They cannot be too close to one or the other. The act specifically says that the person to be appointed needs to have specific skills and experience in Financial Management, law, and Public Administration. Everything that has been in the law and that has been written about them is very clear that it is a nonpartisan and nonpolitically motivated situation. Power and Inspector General has his the perception that they are objective and not objectiveat that the is to improve the efficacy of our government. They are not to be involved in policy deliberations. I have had many inspectors aneral say when they are at leadership meeting, if a policy issue comes up, they leave the room because they may have to a particular audit policy or program later. The intent was clear from the beginning that Inspector Generals are nonpartisan. If you want to ask kathryn newcomer about inspectors general, you can do so. Democrats 202 7488000. Republicans 202 7488001. Independents 202 7488002. On our text us and post cspan twitter feed. You talked about it a little bit, but in the last couple of weeks, inspectors general have with the of the news firings of my quagga sin of the Intelligence Community and Christie Graham at health and human services. Is this a common occurrence . No, and particularly not like this. A lot of the conversation that is going on now is actually part ofe investigative the Inspector General function. Inspector general function and the whistleblowers and so on area i sense that is only a portion of that is only a portion of what they do. In our book, Charles Johnson and i, charles is a scholar from texas a and m, we looked throughout history through the end of the obama administration. Firings are rather unusual. What happens is congress, more will be unhappy with an Inspector General. It could be either way. It could be they are too aggressive or perceived to be to inline with their agency head. There is a pressure for them to step down. Similarly it was very rare that you would find the inspector outright fired though the pressure led to the Inspector General resigning. Beforee of the instances a lack ofally due to understanding of the role of the Inspector General and the fact that they are not political appointees. When Ronald Reagan came in and fired them, it was more the fact that they were unclear. There was a lack of clarity over whether they were supposed to appoint their own. In both cases with reagan and trump they then backed off. Many wente of reagan ahead and resigned but many stayed. The presumption of firing is rare, it is more the presser the pressure. The thing that is more worrisome to me is that we want to make sure that we have this Inspector General appointed who are in line with the qualities that were clarified in the act and have been perpetuated. That is nonpartisan, absolutely background,th legal Public Administration background, and so on. Most of the Inspector Generals have had government background. Up incessarily moving their own Inspector General offices, sometimes that happened , but they have had experience many times in other Inspector General offices and they will move to the top in another office. A perception of objectivity and integrity. Host we have a call lined up. Kathleen from elizabeth, pennsylvania. Line for democrats. You are on. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. Have checks and balances here and we have inspectors general that are supposed to oversee certain things, how is it that they get fired when they do their job . An example is this pompeo situation where he is having people walk his dogs and do his personal business. He did not deny it so i am assuming that is true. The arms sales to saudi arabia. All of a sudden it is a disagreeable situation so the guy doing his job gets fired. My question is, where are the checks and balances . With having these guys if you dont disagree with them and you can have them fired . The president does have the right to replace appointees. The checks and balances comes in ig act, her the 2008 or she must give the rationale for pushing the person out to congress. The notion is that congress would deliberate and could push back. This is where the balance of power comes. Explanationd 30 day is critical. Expect thatt gress would ask questions the notion of independence is that the Inspector General should have the ability to deeme whatever issues they within the responsibility of the Inspector General. This is really key. We do not want to have a Chilling Effect that other Inspector Generals are going to be afraid that they will get fired or worse have their reputation sullied. It is a dilemma. We need congress to step up. Host from florida on the independent line, stephen. Caller thank you for taking my call. My viewpoint has been that the media is influencing the listener in such a way that the Inspector General has an opinion that is skewed in such away or criticized such a way by the left and right that those opinions dont seem to be clear, factual, and not described in an unbiased way. For, if io and to is say to and to good before, no whoever is in charge of the conversation is changing our citizens viewpoints or trying to. That not purely the fact we are not seeing everything behind the scenes. There are always innuendos. I am not sure how the Inspector General would be considered nonbiased by both sides. That is a great comment, a great question. Generals have power simply because of the power of the evidence they provide. There are government auditing standards that are set by the Government Accountability office and they set clear standards in terms of how the Inspector General does their work. Their integrity and the credibility of the evidence they provide to support their findings and recommendations is absolutely critical. I advised the caller to go to any federalof Inspector General agency and download a report. You will see that the actual reports, the findings are supported by evidence and they are very clear to read. They cannot control how the media or pundits on websites make of the findings or how they spend the findings. Spin the findings but if you look at the work undertaken by Inspector Generals you will see that the evidence is very clearly aligned to support findings. The Inspector General and their office newcomer,erine somewhere off of that with he asked the question, what did president obama do with george bushs Inspector Generals. Can you apply that to how incoming administrations treat those in the position from the Previous Administration . Guest in general Inspector Generals last across the administrations and many have. As i mentioned, the reagan misstep is the exception rather than the rule. That hadpector general been appointed by a republican or democrat started acting partisan and inline with any kind of partisan or skewed kind of perspective, they would definitely lose their credibility. They would not be able to be effective. , whoever generals assumes these roles they figured this out very quickly. If they are going to have an impact, and our research every Inspector General we interviewed we asked what success looks like. Every single one said that they would improve the agency and make longterm sustainable rudiments in the ways the organization operates. The investigations are only one part of the full scope of the work of Inspector Generals. Thate that is them is them getting the press and what has gotten the attention of the current president. Host from massachusetts, joe, good morning. Caller she seems to be skirting around all of the questions about the firing of Inspector Generals. Obamad like to know why fired 93 Inspector Generals in his first three years and that seems to be ok and she seems to be going around the question that everybody is asking, why is it ok for certain president s to fire Inspector Generals. Thank you very much. Guest thank you for your question. Only one Inspector General that was asked to resign by obama. Theas the head of incorporation for National Community service. There have not been that many firings by president s. Flurry why this current of firings of Inspector Generals or acting Inspector Generals or deputy Inspector Generals is getting so much press attention. It is not at all the case that president s fire. There was only one that obama fired. Hard to sayck it is whether somebody was actually fired or asked to resign, but there were not 93. There arent even 93 Inspector Generals, there are only 75. Host from missouri, richard is next. Guest i was wondering about this Inspector General business. Under a dictatorship like we are living under now they are useless. You have the head dictator then you have his flunkies in the and what everybody else wants to do they cannot do because you cannot get through the senate. The rest of the senators are not doing anything. Always thought we had a great government with honest people, not hiring their relations. It is a different world i am living in now. Host ok, caller. 2 there is guest i encourage you to look at reports that are open to the public on every Inspector General offices website. In the last fiscal year they save the government 50 billion in savings. They sent over 4000 investigations to the Justice Departments to pursue. They made hundreds of recommendations, most of which were actually implemented to improve the operations of government. Work are many people that and are going to work every day in Inspector Generals offices making great efforts to improve our programs and policies. Despite the fact that our media pays attention to the politics at the top, in fact, there are literally 14,000 people that are going to work every day in Inspector General offices and doing great work. Putting their heads down and working despite the flurry of news. Host what is the process of removing and Inspector General . Guest as you know there are two different kinds of appointments of Inspector General. Some are the president ially appointed and need Senate Confirmation, about three dozen. Appointed bye their agencies, or in the case where there is a board like the smithsonian they will be appointed and they are Civil Servants. They are definitely not at all political. If anybody ish applying for a Senior Executive job in government they would apply. , clearly inding either case, whether or not they are hired by their agency or there is a Senate Confirmation. Clearly Senate Confirmation is grueling and can have a very Chilling Effect to scare off people. It is tough, for either side. The appointment process is are thisd there is something we point out in the book. Anre is no one that gives annual performance appraisal to an Inspector General. They dont have a boss other than the two main masters, congress and the agency head. They are not the answer. They are only under nominal supervision by the agency head. Concerning to me is not that you would have if you have an Inspector General and something is unethical and out of bounds of what is expected by someone who should be the purest of the pure if we are going to criticize others they will get caught out and they do. They they may not be fired are have been Inspector Generals that have been asked to resign or did not make the vetting process because of a problem. Agency in the smaller agencies without president ial appointment, they certainly could ask for the resignations of the ig. It is rare if the vetting process works you dont need there arent as many at the other end. Host from indianapolis, indiana a federal employee. We hear from paul. Good morning, thanks for taking my call. I am retired but i spent 25 years as a government auditor, first with the Army Auditing Agency and with the department of defense Inspector General. During that time i found that the Inspector General, him or herself, was a person of relative unimportance. The important persons were the three principal deputies for auditing, inspecting, and investigations. The inspectors general tended to come and go, i remember during the bush period there might have been five or six different inspectors general it was two or three, it was the Previous Administration where there were more. They had little role to play. They were basically a flashing shield and they said no policy, they directed no audits or investigations. They signed no reports and reported on no reports. They are figureheads that had little influence. That the inspectors general personnel stationed in a strongeroften have view of their own role and they saw themselves as setting policy for the governors with the state department. Often attended classes with my counterparts in state department. For example they were convinced in 1991 that the United States was going to have a hard time beating saddam hussein. The people in the state department seemed to think it was their job and the other Civil Servants to set state Department Policy and the politicians got in the way. Host thank you. Guest you bring up a wonderful point and i am glad you called in. True, as iutely mentioned, there are 14,000 people going to work every day and the work is by and large assistant the if they are audited by the assistant ig for auditing. Thatre absolutely right those assistant igs are the ones that are going to be doing those reports and there will be questions about recommendations or findings and actually getting into the nittygritty of the work, you are correct. I dont know who you talked to at the state department, but for a long time up until the most recent ig you had Foreign Service officers who were rotating through to the Inspector General. There was a lot of criticism of reasons a variety of and that ended. Starting with the most recent ig he was not a Foreign Service officer and had not been appointed from the state Department Area i cant speak to your experience. You are absolutely correct in that one could argue that the byl work is going to be done this extremely Important Institution that plays a unique but Important Role in the accountability for the use of federal money in our government. Assistant igs tended to stay. The Inspector General, the person that gets the most face time with the press, may come and go. The assistant igs tend to stay for a much longer tenure. That is where you have the institutional memory. The institutional memory about where the elements of risk are in systems within agencies. That are the weaknesses could come back to weaken the execution of policies and so on. Its an institutional memory and you are right that it is maintained by those Civil Servants in those leadership roles. Host what is the scope of investigative power given to an ig . Guest they can collect evidence. The investigators are one unit to carrye ig, they get guns and act like lawenforcement. They do not prosecute. All of the cases are most of the time sent to the department of justice. You can find situations where it could be that something is in a Regional Office and they are coordinating with a state prosecutor. In general they do not actually prosecute the cases. Like any good investigators they need to make a Strong Enough case to ensure that the Justice Department will go again and prosecute. Chantilly,john and virginia on the democrats line. Caller i want to make sure the bottom line is the president is looking for loyalty. It doesnt matter whether you are an Inspector General or not, if you are not loyal to him he is telling everybody i am looking for loyalty. Is a president in the wrong country. If he was a president in africa he could fire everybody wants. The bottom line is we need accountability and Inspector General, the job itself, if they dont get protected by the congress it is useless to have this job. Job yourleave this credibility will be challenged and you might not even have another job again. You can answer that, but can you also talk about the oversight of Inspector Generals, who does that . Guest as i mentioned, the two primary powers over Inspector Generals are the president or agency head as well as the congress. Is s why the perception that they are independent is that they cannot be perceived to be beholden or linked to one or the other side. Been more often one of the two masters to push the Inspector Generals out. Literally making it difficult for them to do their work. Much because of investigations but perhaps because they were not paying enough attention to certain issues that a Congressional Committee has been interested in. Other issues, not so much the loyalty or not pursuing investigations. New is what is really during this period. This is really unprecedented. This morning of Iowa Republican senator Chuck Grassley who has taken it upon himself to talk about and uphold the role of Inspector General. Talk about the influence he has in congress about this role and the concern about recent firings and removals and the like. Hill two yearshe after the Inspector General past. He came in 80. Longesteen there the and was persistent in insuring that Inspector Generals had the ability to fulfill their Important Role in accountability. Thereen very active was another Inspector General act that expanded the number of Inspector Generals and in 2008 there was a strengthening of the ig community with the establishment of the council of Inspector Generals of integrity and efficiency. One to have his staff have their ears ready to listen to complaints that Inspector Generals may have had. He has been right in there. Issued letterss to say we did not get the rationale for the 30 days. During the last couple of years, i have been thinking of other Inspector Generals, he has been also asking for information about this has been an area of butrest, not just firings making sure that they continue to operate and exercise this Important Role of accountability. People have been critical of him not as quick to part ofthis time and the response was role layed a lead the ability to independently do their job. Host lets go to fairfax, virginia. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have to admit this stinks. Countryke a third world where somebody gets bad news and they fire the person because they dont hear what they want to hear. Understand i understand what is currently going on, but i think it stinks. I will take Everything Else offline. Guest what has been the case for many president s is they dont understand or appreciate the role of Inspector Generals. You even have secretaries that dont understand the role of Inspector General, and a huge impact for the good they can make. President that this sees this as a political appointee. They are not simply a political and pointy. Are a different category of Public Servant that have been put into a very demanding and treacherous role. They have to speak truth to power. Its not just to an agency head but two people who are running very expensive programs in government agencies. They have to deliver bad news about Financial Management issues, i. T. Issues, a full variety of issues. Oke that at a if anyone works for the federal government they will go, we hate you guys, we are scared of you guys, you are the fault finders. They are, they are the fault finders. Thats why they are not popular but necessary and very valuable. From tennessee on the independent line. Beler i think you need to more honest with your analysis. There was nos Inspector General at the state department. That represented the entire duration of Hillary Clintons 10 year and that why there was never an ig report into her private email server. This president is breaking norms but it is certainly not new. The president has political influence over the ig office. That sit there and tell us firing an ig here and there is something terrible when obama did not even have an ig in the state department. He did that for a reason. Igs there. E were there were a couple of acting and they did issue reports on the emails. Speak to your personal experience. There have been Inspector Generals and as i mentioned they had been Foreign Service officers with short tenures. I worked with a couple who had short tenures. One i worked with got to be the ambassador to the u. N. She left the Inspector General. Thats why there was concern up until this last Inspector General that there had been too high a turnover. Fear and i share this with acting Inspector Generals, there is a fear that they may not be as aggressive and proactive as a confirmed Inspector General would be. There were a lot time between the appointment of Inspector Generals in democratic and Republican Administration during the obama administration. If you will recall we had a democratic president and a Republican Congress and sometimes there are political conflicts in terms of getting. Enate confirmation host what do you think of the future of the ig office and the scope and power it will hold. Guest i am an optimist. I think all the publicity we have gotten has actually pushed congress to say, we need to do something. Right now that have been introduced in congress that have set terms with only firing by cause. I am an optimist. Aware of there Important Roles the Inspector Generals play and i think we will see action. Host she is with George Washington university, the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration talking about u. S. Inspectors general. Thank washington journal live every day with issues that impact you coming up this morning, tom cole will join us to discuss the federal response to the covid19 pandemic and then we will talk about the firstever astronaut launch for spacex and what that means for the future of Space Exploration with stephen clark. A discussion the coronavirus pandemic with the Economic Policy institute. Live atshington journal 7 00 eastern this morning. Join the discussion. Today, watch live coverage from the spacex commercial crew test flight marking the first launch of astronauts on american soil since from american spacecraft since 2011. A lot our live coverage begins at 12 15 p. M. Eastern on cspan two. Launch theronauts International Space station. Then he postlaunch briefing with Jim Bridenstine at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. Eastern come11 15 all day live coverage of the spacex crew dragon as a docks with the International Space station and the opening of the hatch between the space vehicles in the event between the spacex crew dragon and the iss crew. Watch live on cspan two online at cspan. Org or on the free cspan radio app. 10, 9, 8, 7. Ship is up and burning. 2, 1, 0. , america willoff continue the dream. On wednesday, nasa launched to u. S. Astronauts into space for the First Time Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. The astronauts will join the current team on board the International Space station. For the next 90 minutes we will look at the history of Space Exploration. Manhats one small step for , one giant leap for mankind. We will tour the country to hear the stories of the people and places key to its development. First up is lynchburg, virginia to visit with Leland Melvin who went on to become a astronaut. He flew two missions to the International Space station on board the Space Shuttle atlantis