President Donald Trump in a span of 24 hours has upended the executive branch’s internal oversight of most of the government’s discretionary budget.
In one fell swoop, Trump removed the newly named leader of a watchdog committee overseeing federal pandemic response spending. He then ordered one person to oversee, for the near term, all audits and investigations of military and environmental programs. And he nominated what some consider to be a relatively unqualified official to monitor the Pentagon’s multibillion-dollar enterprise.
The moves come on the heels of the president’s firing on Friday of the intelligence community inspector general who had forwarded to Congress the whistleblower complaint that led to the impeachment inquiry. Continue reading.