Axed Inspector General for Small Business Warns Trump Is Threatening Transparency in Government | Video

In his first interview since being fired by President Donald Trump on Friday, former Inspector General for the Small Business Administration Hannibal “Mike” Ware called his sudden firing — along with 17 other inspector generals — “alarming” and “a threat to democracy, a threat to independent oversight and a threat to transparency in government.”

Ware, who was sworn in during Trump’s first presidential term in 2018, told MSNBC host Ana Cabrera that he found out he had been removed from his position in an unorthodox fashion Friday evening.

“My wife and I were out with a group of friends having dinner. My phone started blowing up,” Ware recalled. “One of [the other IGs] notified me that they had received an email notifying them that they were fired immediately, and I said, ‘Oh, that is a shame. Let me check my email,’ and I noticed that I was [on that list] as well.”

When asked what reason was given for his removal, Ware told Cabrera, “The reason is actually the most alarming part. The reason was due to ‘changing priorities of the administration,’ and the reason that is alarming is because IGs are not a part of any administration. IGs oversee how the priorities of the administration are being conducted to make sure that there is transparency in government and to make sure that there is no fraud, waste and abuse in how taxpayer funds are being expended.”

You can watch the full interview below.

“This is not about any of our individual jobs. We acknowledge that the president has the right to remove any of us that he chooses,” Ware noted, following a clip in which South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham conceded that Trump had “technically” broken the law by firing multiple inspectors general without providing a 30-day advance notice. “But the protections that were baked into the [Inspector General Act] are everything. Absent having to provide a real reason [for termination], we are looking at what amounts to a threat to democracy, a threat to independent oversight, and a threat to transparency in government.”

“Adherence to the IG Act cannot be done in a piecemeal manner,” Ware continued. “You can not decide, ‘I am not gonna follow that part of the IG Act, but, oh, I am gonna follow the part that allows IGs to have full and unfettered access to all agencies, records, and personnel.’ You are going to follow the part that says that we get to determine which investigations we conduct and not? If you split it up like that, it is all gone. We might as well not have an Inspector General Act at all. We might as well not have an independent oversight mechanism for our government.”

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