As President Biden continues to fill out key positions in his administration, there is another category of nominees experts hope the new president will soon take up: inspectors general. There are currently over a dozen IG positions with acting heads and no nominees yet.
The Biden administration does not face a new challenge. Some of the current vacancies date to the Obama administration—one opening has remained unfilled since June 2014. But the current situation is unique in that Biden’s opportunity to fill these jobs follows years of extreme turbulence in the IG community. Former President Trump openly disparaged IGs whose findings contradicted statements of administration officials, and he removed a number of high-profile IGs without cause, including the State Department and Intelligence Community IGs.
“It's a shame that, two months into President Biden's term, there are still so many inspector general vacancies and so few nominees to fill those roles,” said Caitlin MacNeal, communications manager for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight. “Inspectors general are crucial to an ethical, effective federal government, as Congress and the public rely on them to investigate and expose waste and misconduct.”
The offices need permanent heads because acting IGs “are often less likely to hire additional necessary staff and take on controversial investigations,” she added.
“This is a perennial problem,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. He attributes the vacancies and lack of urgency in filling them to higher priorities in any given administration, not necessarily to hostility for the IG role itself. Also, “the Senate is literally o ..
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