On the evening of October 1, fifteen government oversight websites were down, therefore rendering watchdog reports, hotline, and whistleblower links inaccessible. While this occurred behind the smokescreen of the government shutdown, it was a deliberate and unprovoked action by Russ Vought’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which withheld funding for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE).
The CIGIE homepage featured a single line of text: “Due to a lack of apportionment of funds, this website is currently unavailable.”
The same line is displayed by the Office of Inspector General websites for the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Justice, Interior and Veterans Affairs, and by those of AmeriCorps, Export-Import Bank of the United States, Federal Trade Commission, International Trade Commission, National Archives and Records Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Personnel Management, Smithsonian Institution, and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
Nextgov/FCW
The Inspector General pages for the National Labor Relations Board and the Architect of the Capitol, as well as Oversight.gov, which is run by CIGIE, were also shut down. Without evidence or elaboration, the OMB accused inspectors general of being corrupt, partisan, and dishonest.
The closure of CIGIE stymies the work of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which relies on CIGIE for much of its operations.
Experts have warned that the erosion of the power of inspectors general could see the return of the pre-Watergate federal government, in which there were no reliable oversight bodies to hold agency leaders accountable. They also warned that the lack of oversight is an obvious sign of growing authoritarianism.
As of the time of writing, Oversight.gov and ignet.gov were running properly once again after the administration received scrutiny for its attack on transparency (the White House, earlier in the second term, boasted of being transparent) and pushback from some Republicans in Congress.
