USAID Inspector General Fired

Leah Barkoukis | February 12, 2025 8:30 AM

Paul Martin, inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development, was fired on Tuesday, a day after his office criticized the Trump administration’s reorganization of the agency and its efforts to hold it accountable for waste, fraud, and abuse.

The deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel emailed Martin, informing him of his termination, “effective immediately.”

Martin had served as inspector general since December 2023. While President Donald Trump fired inspectors general from more than a dozen federal agencies during his first week in office, the USAID watchdog had remained in place. An IG conducts investigations and audits into any potential malfeasance, fraud, waste or abuse by a government agency or its personnel, and issues reports and recommendations on its findings. An inspector general’s office is intended to operate independently.
Staff from the USAID Office of the Inspector General have also been informed they no longer have access to their physical office space, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Although the Trump administration closed the headquarters building of USAID in Washington last week, personnel at the watchdog’s office had still been permitted to work in person in that same building until Tuesday.
In a report Monday, the USAID OIG said that the Trump administration’s reduction of USAID personnel and its sweeping freeze on foreign assistance had made it more difficult to track and respond to potential misuse of $8.2 billion in US taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance. (CNN)