Trump Removes Glenn Fine from Pentagon IG, Blocking $2 Trillion CARES Act Oversight

President Trump removed Glenn Fine from his position as acting inspector general for the Defense Department on April 7, 2020, just one week after Fine was selected to chair the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee tasked with overseeing the $2.2 trillion CARES Act stimulus spending. The removal automatically disqualified Fine from leading the oversight panel, as federal law requires the chair to be a sitting inspector general. Fine, who had served as Justice Department IG from 2000-2010 and Pentagon acting IG since 2016, had developed a bipartisan reputation for integrity and independence—making him precisely the kind of watchdog Trump sought to sideline.

Background

Congress created the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee on a bipartisan basis as part of the CARES Act to provide desperately needed oversight of the largest emergency spending package in American history. The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency selected Fine to chair the committee on March 30, 2020, reflecting confidence in his track record of nonpartisan oversight. Fine’s removal came during a concentrated purge of inspectors general, following the firing of Intelligence Community IG Michael Atkinson on April 3 and preceding additional IG dismissals in May.

Congressional Response and Constitutional Crisis

House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney condemned the removal as “a direct insult to the American taxpayers” and “a blatant attempt to degrade the independence of Inspectors General who serve as checks against waste, fraud, and abuse.” Senator Mitt Romney warned that “the firings of multiple Inspectors General is unprecedented; doing so without good cause chills the independence essential to their purpose. It is a threat to accountable democracy and a fissure in the constitutional balance of power.” Chairman Stephen Lynch noted Fine’s forced departure as part of Trump’s “continued attacks on independent oversight.”

Significance

The systematic removal of Glenn Fine from pandemic oversight eliminated the primary accountability mechanism for $2 trillion in emergency spending at the precise moment when oversight was most critical. Fine resigned entirely from the Pentagon IG office on May 26, 2020, becoming the latest in a wave of career watchdogs driven from government by Trump’s assault on independent oversight. The action demonstrated Trump’s determination to ensure pandemic relief funds would flow without independent scrutiny—a pattern that would enable widespread waste, fraud, and politically motivated distribution of taxpayer resources throughout the COVID-19 crisis.