IGs oversee most federal agencies. Why not the Supreme Court?

Inspectors general are placed in most federal agencies to promote efficiency and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, and the U.S. Supreme Court would benefit from having one, said former inspector general of the Department of Justice Glenn Fine.

There are 74 offices of inspectors general across the federal government, but the federal judiciary, which includes the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts, has none. With roughly 2,000 judges, 30,000 employees, and an $8 billion budget, the federal judiciary is a huge operation that lends itself to fraud and waste, which only an independent internal overseer can evaluate and investigate, said Fine ’78, J.D. ’85.

“Justices are human, and some may commit misconduct, and some may be accused of misconduct unfairly,” said Fine during a conversation with Jack Goldsmith, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. “I believe an inspector general would be good for the U.S. Supreme Court and it would help improve trust in the court.”

Fine’s proposal for the Supreme Court was one of several he offered during the talk about his new book, “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government,” which highlights the critical role of inspectors general in promoting efficiency and government accountability. 

Established by Congress in 1978, the office of inspector general and its role is still not well understood by the public or even by government officials, said Fine, who hopes his book underscores the critical work they do. As independent, nonpartisan overseers within their agencies, inspectors general can conduct audits, evaluations, and investigations to detect and deter waste, fraud, and abuse, providing an essential check and balance in government. IGs report to their agency heads and to Congress and must make public reports with recommendations.

“We do need a better answer to the question of who is watching the watchdogs, both in terms of when there’s actual misconduct committed and also when an IG is just not that effective.”

Glenn Fine

“They have been called some of the most important public servants you’ve never heard of, and that’s true,” said Fine. “When I was the IG of the Justice Department, I worked with five attorney generals, and when I was the acting IG of the Department of Defense, I worked with four secretaries of defense, and even they did not understand the independence of the IG.”

As inspector general of the Department of Justice from 2000 to 2011 and acting inspector general of the Department of Defense from 2006 to 2020, Fine served during the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. In April 2020, Trump ousted Fine as the Pentagon’s acting watchdog, and subsequently removed him as the head of a panel tasked to oversee the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package. At the time, Trump also removed four other inspectors general, including the Intelligence Community IG and the State Department IG.

During his tenure at the Justice Department from 2000 to 2011, Fine’s office oversaw investigations of the ways in which the FBI missed and failed to connect the dots before the Sept. 11 attacks, the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and the failure of FBI internal security procedures to detect agent Robert Hanssen as a spy working for Russia for over two decades, among many others.

From 2006 to 2020, Fine’s IG office at the Department of Defense investigated the use of reconstruction funds in Afghanistan, as well as the wars in Iraq and Syria, and the “Fat Leonard” case, the worst corruption scandal in Navy history.

During his talk, Fine also proposed reforms to improve the IG’s office, including setting a term limit for inspectors general, preventing them from holding multiple positions at the same time, and establishing a better system to oversee inspectors general.

“We do need a better answer to the question of who is watching the watchdogs, both in terms of when there’s actual misconduct committed and also when an IG is just not that effective,” said Fine.

Goldsmith, who interacted with Fine at the Justice Department when Goldsmith was the assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, from 2003 to 2004, had words of praise for inspectors general.

“Inspectors general are feared in agencies because of their independence and because they could go anywhere and do anything within the department,” said Goldsmith. “It’s hard to exaggerate how important these institutions are to the functioning of the executive branch and how successful they are.”

The work of inspectors general makes government accountable and promotes democracy, said Fine, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School. They should strive to be timely, transparent, and make actionable recommendations, and most importantly, they should be independent and stand up to potential challenges by government officials.

“Don’t expect to be popular,” said Fine. “You can’t try to please one side or the other because that’s a recipe for disaster, and your credibility is shot. That’s the only thing that matters: your credibility or independence … the belief that you’re doing this in a nonpartisan, credible way, relying only on the facts.”