The Inspector General’s ability to remain quartered off from the push and pull of partisan politics has never been more vital to American democracy. The reelection of Donald Trump has resulted in significant firings in the oversight community. President Trump has made his deep distrust for the executive branch bureaucracy known. Inspectors General (IG), the watchdogs seated within the executive agencies, are no exception. In the spring of 2020, during his first term in office, President Trump went on a firing spree, removing two permanent and two acting IGs. After only a month into his second term, seventeen IGs have already been fired by the President. Overall, these actions have led to heighted congressional interest in securing further independence for IGs through the Inspector General Act. One mechanism that has been heavily debated is the for-cause removal provision and whether it can constitutionally be applied to an IG.

This Note will analyze whether for-cause removal protection would be constitutional as applied to the role of the IG. In Part I, this Note summarizes the Act. In Part, II, this paper explores the IG jurisprudence from Myers to today. In Part III, the Note questions whether IGs are officers of the United States and Part V concludes IGs are inferior officers. Lastly, in Part V, this Note rewrites the statute that governs IGs to insulate them from the Court’s past critiques of for-cause removal. While the case law remains inconclusive, this paper will rewrite the Act to frame IGs as inferior officers for whom the for-cause removal provision would be constitutional and then analyze whether reframing IGs as inferior officers undermines their core mission of independent oversight. 

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