Justice Dept.'s Inspector General to Move to the Federal Reserve
Michael E. Horowitz is stepping down as the Justice Department's longtime inspector general to become the chief internal watchdog official at the Federal Reserve.
He will take over effective June 30, the Federal Reserve said in a statement on Friday. Under a federal law, the chairman of the Fed, Jerome Powell, appoints the agency's inspector general without presidential input or Senate confirmation.
The role will also give Mr. Horowitz jurisdiction to scrutinize the Consumer Financial Protection Board, an agency the Trump administration is trying to gut, although judicial interventions have slowed down that effort. Mr. Trump made his White House budget chief, Russell T. Vought, the acting head of the board.
Inspectors general are embedded within agencies to hunt for and prevent waste, fraud, inefficiencies and abuses of power. Their creation, in a 1978 law, was a key reform by Congress after the Watergate scandal.
Mr. Horowitz was one of the few inspectors general to be spared when President Trump fired as many as 17 of the officials at major departments or agencies days after returning to office, curbing a significant internal check on how he and his political appointees use their power.
Eight of them have since filed a lawsuit challenging those removals, which violated a law that says a president must give advance notice to Congress and a detailed explanation for any such dismissal.
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