President Trump removes head of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee


On April 6, Glenn Fine, the acting inspector general for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), lost his leadership position on the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) when President Donald Trump replaced him with Sean O’Donnell, the inspector general for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Trump asked O’Donnell to serve as inspector general of the EPA and acting inspector general of the DOD while Jason Abend, who Trump nominated to be inspector general for the DOD, awaits confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Michael Horowitz, inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice and chair of Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), had appointed Fine as chair of PRAC on March 30. CIGIE is an independent entity within the executive branch created by the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 that aims to address issues that transcend individual agencies. PRAC is a committee within CIGIE established by the CARES Act, passed in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The act empowered PRAC to promote transparency and to prevent and detect waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of the funds allocated for pandemic relief.

To learn more about the appointment and removal power, click here.

https://ballotpedia.org/Appointment_and_removal_power

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