The Friday Night Purge
How Trump Erased 17 Watchdogs in One Night and Gutted America’s Last Internal Checks
It happened quietly, the way power grabs often do.
At 8:47 p.m. Eastern on January 24, 2025, inboxes across Washington lit up with the same blunt subject line: “Termination of Appointment.”
By midnight, at least 17 inspectors general — the independent watchdogs embedded in the federal government’s most powerful agencies — were out of a job.
Defense. State.…
