On a recent episode of Stanford Legal, podcast host and Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan was joined by Glenn Fine, a former Inspector General at the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, as well as a Stanford Law School lecturer. 

In his discussion with Karlan, Fine shed light on the role of inspectors general in ferreting out waste, fraud, and abuse within government agencies, noting that IGs have been called “the most important public servants you’ve never heard of.” As Karlan said in the interview: President Trump “created this idea that DOGE would look into waste, fraud and abuse. But you know what? We already had people who were looking into waste, fraud, and abuse.” Trump ended his first week in office by firing inspectors general across 17 different federal agencies.

Fine, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the author of the book Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government, with a foreword by General Jim Mattis.

The following is an edited and shortened version of the full podcast interview, which can be found here.

Pam Karlan: The Inspector General Act of 1978 sets forth what inspectors general do, but could you tell about the day-to-day of the role at DOJ and DOD?

There’s an inspector general in every federal agency whose mission is to detect and deter waste, fraud, abuse, and promote the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of the agency. We had a staff of auditors, evaluators and investigators who were able to look into any program or operation of the agency, and the agency—the Department of Justice, or the Department of Defense—had to cooperate with us. 

We issued reports making recommendations for improvements. We did criminal investigations and administrative investigations of misconduct, and we tried to hold the agency accountable. There’s a group of inspectors general, an umbrella group called the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and they tabulate all the potential savings from inspectors general from throughout the entire federal community, and it’s in the billions of dollars every year of potential savings. So yes, there already are people within each agency to try and hold the agency accountable.

Pam Karlan: The most recent semi-annual report to Congress from the Department of Justice Inspector General shows they had issued 44 reports, made 190 recommendations and recovered $27 million. They had 31 convictions and had a slew of disciplinary actions. Is that fairly typical for a six-month period?

It is very typical. And it’s because the inspector general is within the agency and knows where the issues are and knows where the problematic areas are and has experience in detecting and deterring waste and abuse within the agency. All the other large cabinet agencies have similar statistics.

Pam Karlan: Can you talk about some of the investigations you were involved in?

One at the Justice Department  involved the politicized hirings and firings in the second term of the Bush administration. The Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, removed a group of U.S. Attorneys without reasons why, and it created a significant backlash. He also had a group of officials who made judgments on hirings of career officials in the Department of Justice, the Summer Intern Program, the Honors Program, and they used political measures or considerations for whom to hire.

We were asked, along with the Office of Professional Responsibility, to look into that and found that they did use political judgments in the hiring for nonpolitical positions and had arbitrary and capricious reasons, without any rationale, for the firings of the U.S. Attorneys, including some who may have been fired for political reasons.  

Listen to the Podcast with Glenn Fine

Pam Karlan: We should note that those are civil service jobs that are supposed to be done through what’s called “merit hiring,” right?

The Honors Program and other career positions should be done through the civil service on merit principles, not for political reasons. U.S. Attorneys are hired and fired by the President, but normally once they’re hired, they should not be using political considerations in their decisions and that’s why it was problematic that the President removed a group of U.S. Attorneys without significant reason why. We issued a report that explained that and resulted in changes in how the Department of Justice operated.

Another case involved corruption in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The vast majority of correctional officers are honest and do a difficult job under difficult circumstances, but some are corrupt. This was a tragic case where one of our investigators was killed in the line of fire. We investigated a ring of corrupt prison officers in a prison in Tallahassee who were abusing female inmates and threatening them with retaliation if they said anything about it. Six correctional officers in the prison were indicted for sexual abuse of inmates. When our agents, along with the FBI, went to arrest the correctional officers at the facility, two of them were arrested without incident. The third pulled a gun from his gym bag. He fired and shot a prison lieutenant, and then he went to shoot more people. One of our agents, stationed at the door, was shot and fell but managed to return fire, killing the correctional officer. But our agent died as a result of his gunshot wound. This illustrates the heroism of IG law enforcement officers who try to prevent corruption and criminal conduct throughout the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Pam Karlan: How did you come into the IG position in the first place?

I was an assistant United States Attorney, then went to a law firm, and then decided I wanted to get back into government. A friend introduced me to the Inspector General of the Justice Department at the time, Michael Bromwich. I had no idea what an Inspector General was. Many people don’t. They have been called some of the most important public servants you’ve never heard of. They’re appointed by the President in the large cabinet agencies and confirmed by the Senate. They are supposed to be selected without regard to their political affiliation and they’re supposed to be independent and objective units within the agency. So, I took the job with the Justice Department IG. And since IGs are nonpolitical, they normally remain when the administration changes. I was the Justice Department IG in the Clinton administration, in the two terms of the Bush administration, and also in the Obama administration. 

Pam Karlan: And later the Department of Defense?

After 11 years at the Justice Department, I decided it was time for change. So, I left and went into a law firm. And I enjoyed the work of the law firm, but it didn’t have the same satisfaction, and I wanted to get back into government. What can I say? I guess I’m a recidivist.

I was asked to go into the Department of Defense as the Principal Deputy Inspector General by the Inspector General at the time, who was interested in potentially leaving the job and having a deputy who could take over as an acting who was experienced. So, I took the job in 2015, he left soon thereafter, and then I became the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense in 2016.

On one hand, being an IG is being an IG, but there are differences between the Department of Defense and Department of Justice. One is the size. The Department of Defense is the biggest government agency, perhaps the biggest organization in the world. It has a $800 billion budget. It has 3 million people if you count active duty, civilians, the Reserves, etc.  

The Department of Justice is mostly focused domestically but the Department of Defense is all around the world and you have to understand what’s happening all around the world. The number of acronyms at DOD is notable. Everything is turned into an acronym. At one point, I said to one of my staff, who was a military veteran, “Why do they use so many acronyms at the Department of Defense?” And he said “We’re very BGOA here. “I say, “BGOA? What does that mean?” He said, “Very Big on Acronyms.”  I was very impressed with the culture of the Department of Defense. It had tremendous experience, tremendous talent, and an obviously critical mission.

Pam Karlan: What kinds of investigations did you do at DOD?

They were similar investigations. We had audits and evaluations and criminal investigations. We investigated price gouging in Pentagon procurement contracts. We did audits of the financial statements of the Department of Defense. We did an investigation of the worst corruption scandal in Navy history, the so-called Fat Leonard case. Fat Leonard had a ship servicing business in the Pacific in which he serviced Navy ships, but he corrupted so many Navy officers. They would overlook his overbilling because he had provided them gifts and lavish dinners and tickets and cash and prostitutes. It was really a challenging investigation. Eventually he was arrested and started cooperating, and he cooperated against several Navy officers who were convicted of corruption.

Pam Karlan: Inspectors general have been back in the news recently because one of President Trump’s first acts when he came back into office was to fire, I think it was 17 of the inspectors general. There’s actually law on what the President can or can’t do in removing an inspector general, right?

The Inspector General Act does allow the President to remove an inspector general, but has a process. He’s supposed to give Congress 30 days’ notice before the removal, and in an amendment to the IG Act that was passed in a bipartisan way in 2022, he’s supposed to give a substantive rationale with detailed and case-specific reasons for the removal. If the President wants to immediately remove the IG, he can if the situation meets certain criteria, like the IG would be a threat in the workplace. But the President did not follow those provisions of the IG Act and removed 17 of them, virtually all of them.

Pam Karlan:  Regarding the 2022 amendments, which require the notice to Congress, why did Congress care so much about making sure that they knew ahead of time if a president was going to remove an IG?

I think the rationale is to require a reason so that if Congress wants to try to persuade the President not to remove the IG or to argue against it, they have an opportunity to do that. It didn’t prevent the president from removing the IG, but it allowed an opportunity for persuasion and argument about that and even that wasn’t even followed.

Pam Karlan: We talked a little bit about a report you did on politicized hiring and firing. Looking ahead, do you think the Offices of Inspectors General—all of which have acting IGs at this point—are going to be capable of doing the kind of investigations that you did as DOJ Inspector General?

I think they’re capable of it. They have good people in the office. My concern is if the office has become politicized and they change with every administration, and if you are removed when you issue a report that’s critical of the agency, it does undermine the independence and the willingness of some people in the IG’s office to criticize the current administration. That’s the danger with politicization of these jobs.

That’s why Congress wanted IGs to be independent and nonpartisan, and why Congress wanted them to normally remain when the administrations change. It does have a chilling effect when IGs are removed and become almost political appointees like any others.

Pam Karlan:  In your book, you note a number of times that the agencies truly wanted your honest opinion of what was going on. And that seems to me to be central to the ability of IGs to perform their jobs correctly.

That’s right. An IG can’t force management to make any changes; they just make recommendations.  It’s up to management, the heads of the agencies and other officials to make those changes. But I was very fortunate because everyone I worked with—five attorneys general, four secretaries of defense or acting secretaries—appreciated the work. They didn’t always love it, but they realized that by bringing problems to their attention, by making recommendations for improvement, we were helping the operations of the agency.

Pam Karlan: It’s telling that the foreword to your book was written by a former Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis.

He would always say, “I can’t improve things unless you bring problems to my attention.” He would say that to his staff. He would say that to the IG.

There was Attorney General Ashcroft in the Department of Justice. He was in favor of continuous improvement, and we issued some very critical reports during his tenure as the Attorney General. But he always accepted the role of the IG. He would compare an IG audit or investigation to going to the dentist. He would say, it’s painful when you’re in the dentist’s chair, but you come out healthier, better. I was fortunate to have leaders of the organizations that I work with have that attitude.

Glenn Fine, a Stanford Law School lecturer, served as the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2011, and also as the Acting Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense from 2016 to 2020. He has testified more than 50 times before congressional committees about this work and has written articles on inspectors general, federal investigations, and the management of federal agencies. Previously, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington D.C., where he handled criminal cases, including more than 35 jury trials. He also worked in private practice in two law firms. Glenn is a graduate of Harvard College, where he was co-captain of the Harvard basketball team and was drafted in the 10th round of the 1979 NBA draft by the San Antonio Spurs. Instead of trying out for the NBA, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. After Oxford, he received a J.D. from Harvard Law School.