• Eight former inspectors general fired by the Trump administration are suing to regain their jobs.
• Their lawsuit says the administration violated federal laws protecting them from interference.
• Efforts by the Trump White House to shrink the federal workforce have been met with legal challenges.

Eight former federal inspectors general who were fired from their independent watchdog roles are suing to regain their positions, marking the latest legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s administration.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in a federal district court in Washington, DC, accused the administration of violating “unambiguous” federal laws designed to protect inspectors general from “interference” in their nonpartisan oversight duties.

One law, the Securing Inspector General Independence Act — passed in 2022 with bipartisan support — requires the president to give Congress advanced notice before removing an inspector general, and to provide a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons.”

The lawsuit claims that Trump ignored these laws just days into his current term, and instead dismissed them via a “two-sentence email sent by the director or deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel.”

As a result, the lawsuit said they lost access to their government email accounts, computer systems, and government-issued devices, and were barred from entering the government buildings they were assigned to work in.

The former inspectors general represented eight federal agencies — the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, State, Agriculture, Education, and Labor, as well as the Small Business Administration.

The lawsuit named Trump and the heads of those agencies as defendants.

The lawsuit said the inspectors general are seeking redress for their “unlawful and unjustified” terminations. They’re demanding to be reinstated until the president removes them from their posts in accordance with the law.

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Congress created the inspectors general in 1978, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, to combat fraud and abuse. It subsequently granted the federal watchdogs the authority to investigate and audit agency activities.

The removal of the inspectors general last month drew criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described them as a “chilling purge” that he said showed Trump is “terrified of accountability.”

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, said in January that she didn’t understand why “one would fire individuals whose mission is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.”

The lawsuit comes amid efforts by the Trump administration, spearheaded by Elon Musk, to shrink the federal workforce. Measures have included a federal worker buyout, a return-to-office mandate, a hiring freeze, and the removal of DEI roles.

Some of these efforts have triggered their own legal challenges.

Unions sued to halt the deferred resignation program for federal workers, but on Wednesday a federal judge lifted an order blocking the Office of Personal Management from enforcing the deferred resignation deadline.