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Our reading
Inspectors General can facilitate executive branch accountability even under a unitary executive.
Their wordsAnd yet IGs can still facilitate executive branch accountability, as two recent IG reports-from the Trump-appointed, Senate-confirmed Pentagon IG, and the non-confirmed Federal Reserve IG-illustrate.
Their wordsAnd as a general matter the Trump administration has succeeded in chilling most IGs around the government from robustly pursuing abuse and fraud within their agencies.
Their wordsIGs remain useful to many actors inside the executive branch and in Congress, and that usefulness can empower them politically even if they lack formal independence within the executive branch.
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