(The Center Square) – House Democrats are launching an investigation into what they see as unlawful removals of corruption guardrails in the federal government by the Trump administration.
On behalf of the House committees on the Judiciary and on Oversight and Government, Reps. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., Summer Lee, D-Pa., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Lucy McBath, D-Ga., sent a scathing letter Friday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, demanding information regarding the administration’s rapid-fire actions, including the firing of 17 inspectors general.
The lawmakers accused the president of weakening anti-corruption enforcement, both inside and outside the federal government.
“We write regarding a series of recent actions by the Department of Justice (DOJ) that have significantly restricted the federal government’s ability to deter, investigate, and prosecute corruption in the United States and abroad,” the letter reads. “Far from rooting out corruption and fraud in our government, as President Trump likes to claim, the Trump administration and DOJ’s actions constitute an unprecedented assault on the laws, government agencies and people fighting corruption.”
Since the second Trump administration began a month ago, the president and DOJ have gutted some federal agencies and made numerous changes to the operations of agency watchdogs.
In January, the president removed and reassigned leadership in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section. In February, Trump barred prosecutors from opening any new investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — the DOJ’s primary means of obstructing bribery by U.S. officials and entities — for a 180-day review period of pending cases.
“[O]verexpansive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement against American citizens and businesses — by our own Government — for routine business practices in other nations not only wastes limited prosecutorial resources that could be dedicated to preserving American freedoms, but actively harms American economic competitiveness and, therefore, national security,” the executive order said.
Also this month, the president purportedly fired both the Director of the Office of Government Ethics, which investigates federal officials who violate conflict of interest rules, and the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistleblower reports from government employees.
Trump has justified the actions as part of his plan to “drain the swamp” and root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.