Whats my name, whats my oooo n President Trump is in michigan touring a forward plan that will produce been the leaders and is excited to make remarks. This it was scheduled for 3 20 eastern time, but things appear to be running behind schedule. We will take you there lie with them tomorrow to begin here on cspan. We will take you there when the remarks begin, here on cspan. Danielle brian joining us, the executive director on government oversight talking about the president decision to find the specter general. Lets begin with the role of the Inspector General in the federal government. Why do we have them and when did they first began . Daniel after watergate and the Church Committee hearings, which your viewers were really informed on government history will remember the investigations into overreach and wrongdoing in the Intelligence Community, especially the fbi. The Congress Passed a law that was creating these inspectors general in the agencies and have 78 Inspector Generals across the federal government. They are apart of the executive branch, but they are unique. That is reporting to the head of the agency. They also report to congress. Sort of training do they need to have . How do you become an Inspector General . Guest that is a good question, and it is clear there is confusion about that. In 2008 reform act for the Inspector General laws, they formalized a system where the Inspector General would have two go through a vetting process through the committee that will look at potential igs making sure they had the proper evidence of either a Law Enforcement background, or a legal background, or in some cases, an auditing background, but also some evidence that they arent politically motivated by demonstrate their independent sparring host where do they come from . Rep. Raskin guest an ig will start at a small agency parties there are agency. There are small agency that have an idea and you get skills in managing an ig and to run an office in some cases. Then you work your way up to some of these giant agencies with massive igs staff. Host what kind of power do you have as an ig . Guest in some cases, not much. Makeyou can do is only recommendations as an id and other Law Enforcement, and then congress has to take on those recommendations to fulfill and what corrections are recommended by those igs. At theo you serve pleasure of the president of the United States . Is it the president s decision about who is the president s decision est yes. Is the i. G. Gu there is a role to be played by informing the congress and a these to behy needs to bei. G. Removed. I would never suggest that i. G. s the to be unaccountable. They have this dual headed role congress is required of trying to justify to them why an i. G. Should be removed. I. G. s are in unusual role because their job if they do it well is to bring evidence of wrongdoing and bad news. If youre doing your job well you will not make friends. Ost how do they do their job . All of them have Law Enforcement powers to look into subpoena documents. They have such a range of responsibility. There is a cliche about it then if you see one, youve only seen one. Part of theg inspectors general job is to deal with fathers who have delinquent Child Support payments. Pentagon,ave it the dealing with massive defense contracts. It is a whole range of types of misconduct they have to look into your who appoints the i. G. s and what is the difference between permanent and acting . President ially appointed and the other half are appointed by the heads of commissions or boards. There are number of federal boards that have multimembers. And those report to those groups. About 37 of them are appointed by the president. Acting takes over where there is a vacancy. If there is not a Senate Confirmed ig, there is an acting that takes place. Host if some of them serve at the pleasure of the president , why cant he or she fire that ig . Guest i dont think anyone is suggesting they cant, i think there is a clear requirement in the law that congress be notified so that there be an investigation into whether there is selfinterest. In the cases we have seen it is fairly clear that there are real concerns about why these people have been removed, and Congress Needs to do a lot more to elevate the concerns we have about why they are being removed. Host i want to talk more about these cases. Lets invite our viewers to call in. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independent, 202 7488002. Start dialing in. Lets talk about the state department Inspector General. His firing. Guest not only was he fired in a similar fashion to the other Inspector General who was fired where the president gives notice to congress only that he has lost confidence, which is not an explanation, and then immediately has them leave. Law requires a 30 day notice and that was an in violation. Then the number two in charge to become the acting, he is put in place another trump appointee. To add insult to injury, that person is going to retain their job as a political appointee within state department. You have this enormous conflict. Inspectors general are supposed to be independent of the agency so they can be receiving whistleblower complaints and looking into misconduct while being able to protect them. Now you have a political appointee who is still part of the state Department Administration acting as an independent Inspector General which is a flagrant conflict of interest. Host lets take michael atkinson. Guest that was the first warning shot that there was a war on whistleblowers. That was the Intelligence CommunityInspector General who received allegations from the ukraine whistleblower and handled that properly. While there were efforts by the just didnt by the Justice Department in informing congress, he went through his chain of command. They reported it to the congress. What appears very clear, retaliation by the president. He has removed that ign has and has still not given any explanation for it. Host you right in the Washington Post it is past time for congress to give inspectors general additional protection. Inspectors general need to be shielded against the president s ability to fire them at will. The administration should be required to demonstrate the office was unwilling to conduct oversight. This would allow inspectors general to conduct dogged reviews without fear of retaliation. Why dont they have that protection now . Guest in 2008, the house passed those protections. You can only be removed for certain causes and we name a couple and that oped. The point is lost confidence is not a reason. Giving an actual release Reason Congress can evaluate is an essential step. Host before we get to calls, how are you funded . Guest we have a contract on government oversight. Our mission is to investigate corruption, wrongdoing and abuse in the government and work to fix the problems we uncover. Our funding comes from individuals as well as foundations. We do not take any money from anyone who has a financial interest in the investigations we conduct. Host sam in brooklyn. Caller how are you doing . Host good morning. Caller i have a few comments. Number one, i think people are starting to confuse opinion from fact. When people call in and they they give opinions. They give dates and numbers and keep going on. When you try to give numbers or dates you have to go on fact. You cant give an opinion and then tell a story. Basically you set a lie. A lot of republicans [indiscernible] when they call in and say obama did this and that if you are so great like you claim trump is you dont have to brag. Host fact and opinion. Guest i think the caller is making an important point that we have to have conversations based on fact, what the law says, and what the evidence is. We have two inspectors general removed by the president without notification or explanation. We have two acting inspectors general removed. All four cases, there are serious concerns about them being removed because of political retaliation. Host roland in upper marbella, maryland. Upper marlborough, maryland. Republican. Are you there . Caller i am here. [indiscernible] why did this ig get fired . Theres no checks and balances. Guest the role of an Inspector Generals to be one of the most important checks and balances system in our government. Youre right that in this case there were two investigations the state department and the state department was conducting. One was if secretary pompeo was misusing federal funds. More substantively, an investigation was into whether the state department was improperly advancing an arms sale to saudi arabia by improperly declaring a national emergency. Those are breadandbutter issues for an Inspector General to be conducting. That is why we have grave concern about moving him and putting in his place a political appointee. Host here is what mike pompeo said. [video clip] i have seen the story where someone was walking my dog to sell arms to my drycleaner. It is crazy stuff. I didnt have access to that information so i could not have possibly retaliated. I was asked questions, i responded with respect to a particular investigation. That was sometime earlier this year. I responded. I do not know the scope, the nature of that investigation other than what i would have seen from the questions i was presented. I do not know if that investigation is continuing, has been closed. It has it is not possible to have been retaliation. Heres another thing to think about, this is all coming through the office of senator menendez. I dont get my ethics guidance from a man who was criminally prosecuted. 15155 new jersey district federal court. His Senate Colleague said basically he was taking bribes. Is that someone i look to for ethics guidance . I will do the right thing to make sure the state department is served by every employee. I will make sure the state department continues to deliver. Host lets dig into a little bit of what he said about how this investigation was working. He says he does not know the nature of that investigation because he was that she he responded to a series of written questions. Explain that more. Guest i cant because it makes no sense. You cant say i knew nothing but i answered questions. It is not a credible response. He has nothing to be concerned about, the last thing he should have done was remove the person. Host tim in minnesota. Caller i thought roland was spot on. The way i understand the ig is there is supposed to be a type of internal watchdog. To me, transparency is key to democracy. I do not think a president has any business appointing them. I think the congressional vetting process is more of a formality sometimes, the president eventually gets his way. This guy has fired four of them. I do not know if he said it actually but obviously he wants people more in line with him. I think that is contrary to democracy. My last comment is i abhor the comment serves at the pleasure of the president. It sounds kingly to me. Guest i take a little exception to the idea that the Senate Confirmation process well, it shouldnt be a rubberstamp. There have been examples of really good congressional oversight over time. It is an important part of that progress. Having an oig president ially appointed is it their status. It elevates your stature so that people are taking your role more seriously. I think it has pluses and minuses. As long as the system is functioning properly and as long as congress is doing its job in upholding the law and requiring the president to explain clearly, giving notice why i still think ultimately we have got to change the law and enhance protection so that we dont have these kinds of what appear to be very clearly motivated removals and there is nothing being done about it. Host nelson in hollywood, florida. Republican. Caller i want to say that i am concerned about the fact that there seems to be inspectors and investigators in every crack of government. We have a president who was duly elected. If it is at his pleasure to let people go, then itd then it is at his pleasure. If you dont like that, vote against him. There seems to be a lot of investigations against him and not very many against a lot of corrupt democrats. Particularly in the house of representatives. Your concern about due process, i am concerned about over process and a constant knocking against the presidency by people who are against this particular administration. That would include Inspector Generals. I respect early i respectfully disagree, but these Inspector Generals i disagree that these Inspector Generals are somehow neutral when it comes to policy. It seems to me there is too many of them. Letting some of them go as part of the process of draining the swamp. Host ok, nelson. Guest i would say our system is not a monarchy. We do not believe in absolute power. I believe strongly that absolute power corrupts absolutely. You need to have checks and balances to make sure we do not have corruption. The only way to do that is with these kinds of systems that are protected so that when one finds misconduct they can move forward and it can be as i mentioned, an Inspector General does not have that much power. All they can do is bring forth evidence and make recommendations. They need to be protected so that the congress and the public can find the facts. Host sterling, virginia. Caller i disagree with that gentleman who just spoke. I was working at the agency, i was on the task force appointed by the Inspector General with regards to iran contra. It was done in a professional way and was done with regard to what the judge was doing on the outside on iran contra. I think it is done professionally. People who have living outside of washington and never work for government they need to step , back and listen to some of the professionals who are devoted to keeping our government safe. The only reason trump is removing this people these people is he does not want to the truth to come out. The Inspector Generals that perform a very good duty it keeps the government in check. We are a divided government. A lot of people do not seem to realize that. We are three branches of government and each one should be able to keep the other one in check. Host i would like it is important to remember that inspectors general are also human beings that need to be held accountable. It is important not to say they should never be removed but there should be clear explanation and standards and evidence and a process to ensure they are not being removed for the wrong reasons. That is what is so important now. It is important to make sure there are standards of conduct, but there has been no effort or any evidence there was wrongdoing in the case of either of the two igs who were fired. Host nancy pelosi addressed the firing of the state department inspectors general. [video clip] this is unfolding, one thing and another, all that stuff. I am very concerned about public policy. Congress passed a law about sales to saudi arabia. In that department, they declared a fake emergency in order to initiate the sales. That may have been part of the investigation. That is what im concerned about. Not only did they do something wrong in declaring a fake emergency, they undermined the will of congress. Lets see how this unfolds, just like in the last 36 hours we are seeing. What it is we know so far is scandalous. Guest i think this is exactly more than 24 hours and we dont have any evidence to the contrary. It is important that the house and senate have begun investigations there are some republicans starting to raise concerns. This has historically been a bipartisan issue. I worry when it becomes politicized and tainted bipartisanship. This is another process of checks and balances. This is not about winning or losing. It is important for republicans to remember that they want to have confidence that inspectors general have protections to do their jobs as well. It is just as important to remove partisan politics from this conversation. Host he said nothing is being done about the firings, what do you mean . Guest at the time the early firing of michael atkinson, senator grassley had a bipartisan letter demanding from the president an explanation. Senators langford and portman also sent a letter asking the same. The president has not responded. It has been more than 30 days and they are ignoring them. That is a sign where congress has got to step up and say we gave you your chance, you are not doing what the laws demanding of you. Now we need to pass a law that ensures when you want to fire one that we have recourse. Host what would that recourse be . Guest giving that Inspector General some rights in the court. For the caller who was concerned this was just about trump and obama, president obama early in his first term removed an Inspector General. At that time there was bipartisan outrage. They took the case the court. The courts ruled he did not have standing. That is the kind of thing that can be resolved in legislation. Host he didnt have standing because there was nothing on the books . Guest thats right. Host gilbert, arizona. Caller i cant believe the last comments. The president has the option to fire anyone who works for him. These generals were people he decided to get rid of. It is that simple. Obama did it, now President Trump did it. It doesnt matter if obama did it first or if trump does it now. As much as i respect cspan, and i respect your mission, you have biased people on here like this lady who is clearly politicizing this. If you contin