Coronavirus watchdog nominee pledges he won't seek Trump’s permission to talk to Congress

President Donald Trump’s pick to police his administration’s massive coronavirus economic rescue effort vowed Tuesday that he would not seek Trump’s permission before reporting to lawmakers.

“Do you plan to gain presidential approval before investigating contacts, issuing reports or communicating with Congress?” asked Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), during a confirmation hearing for Brian Miller, Trump’s pick as a newly created special inspector general for pandemic response.

“No senator,” Miller replied.

Miller’s sworn assertion suggests he plans to uphold the language in the $2 trillion CARES Act, which requires the new inspector general to report to Congress anytime he is impeded in his investigative work. It’s a rejection of the position held by Trump, who in a March 27 signing statement said the newly established watchdog could not be permitted or required to report to Congress without “presidential supervision.”

“I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [IG] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required [by the Constitution],” Trump said in the statement.

In the exchange with Cortez Masto, Miller also indicated that he would inform Congress “immediately” if any agencies asked him to withhold information, and that he would consider any effort to dole out massive sums of taxpayer money to states based “for political gain” a violation that he would review.

The back-and-forth was the most critical of Miller’s two-plus hour confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, which featured a slew of questions from Democrats about whether Miller’s current role as a White House lawyer disqualified him from acting as an independent inspector general.

Miller repeatedly vowed to resist any pressure from the president or other administration officials seeking to undermine his independence. He cited his track record of battling with officials from George W. Bush’s administration as a federal watchdog and vowed he wouldn’t “bend” for anyone in Trump’s orbit either.

But Miller sidestepped questions about whether he played a role, as a White House lawyer, in Trump’s abrupt dismissal of intelligence community watchdog Michael Atkinson last month or the president’s subsequent move to sideline another watchdog, Glenn Fine, who was initially picked to oversee the government’s broad coronavirus response. Miller, too, declined, to say whether he agreed with Trump’s characterization of Atkinson as a “disgrace to IGs.”

The hearing quickly became a skirmish in Congress’ broader confrontation with Trump’s efforts to dismantle or assert control over the independent watchdogs charged with monitoring his administration. Republicans largely backed Miller, rejecting suggestions that he might not be independent enough of the president. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) called such suggestions “innuendo.”

Miller is the first inspector general nominee to come before the Senate since Trump began a concerted effort to remake the community of federal watchdogs and remove those he has deemed, without basis, as acting with an anti-Trump bias. And Senate Democrats have raised concerns about whether a White House aide can truly exercise independence from a president determined to tighten his grip on the inspector general community.

“Looking at the last 20 years, we found only one IG candidate was nominated while serving in the White House counsel’s office, another nominee served in the White House counsel’s office under an earlier administration,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “Both of them resigned, one for politicizing the office, the other for a lack of independence. Not a great track record.”

Miller and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who appeared via video, sparred as she pressed him to make commitments on what might constitute potential abuses worthy of investigation.

Though he first resisted engaging in what he called "hypotheticals" — she said he made the commitments earlier to her in private — he agreed that a bailed-out corporation that lays off employees could spur an investigation, as well as companies that lobbied the White House and Congress before receiving funds.

"Certainly, situations where companies are spending the money for profits and laying off workers seems to be a situation that I would want to investigate," he said.

Under questioning from Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Miller said all inspectors general should be willing to face firing for providing honest information to their superiors.

"You should never be afraid of stating the truth and if you have to be fired, you’re fired," he said. "But you always have to be prepared, at least, to walk away from your job."

For his part, Miller, who Trump tapped as “special inspector general for pandemic response,” pledged to operate free of political influence, in rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. Miller, who is likely to be confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate, would oversee a $500-billion fund managed by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve meant to shore up companies and industries ravaged amid the coronavirus crisis.

“I think independence is vital for the effective operation of any inspector general,” Miller said in response to questioning from the committee’s chairman, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). “I met with resistance throughout my tenure as inspector general. I conducted investigations of major contractors, much to the chagrin of leaders at the GSA … Ultimately I was proven right.”

To emphasize his willingness to buck a Republican administration, Miller recounted an investigation of President George W. Bush's GSA administrator, Lurita Doan, in which she marshaled agency officials to resist his investigation and described him as a "terrorist." He said he persisted with his probe and that ultimate Bush demanded her resignation.

The hearing became Democrats’ first chance to shine a public light on the independence of IGs since early April, when Trump fired Atkinson over his handling of a whistleblower complaint accusing the president of wrongdoing — one that ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment in the House and acquittal in the Senate.

Since then, Trump also demoted Glenn Fine, the inspector general picked by colleagues to broadly overseeing the government-wide coronavirus response and nominated a replacement for the Health and Human Services inspector general, after accusing her without evidence of being an anti-Trump partisan.

Warren said Miller should have been disqualified for the position after working as one of Trump's impeachment attorneys, but she said "you will however have the chance to defend your independence and your integrity by your actions."

"If you stick to the commitments that you have made here, and you are an aggressive watchdog, then I'm prepared to work with you," she said.

"I would like to work with you, even if you don't vote for my confirmation as you indicated yesterday," he responded.

Democrats bristled at Miller’s response to questions about his role, as a White House lawyer, in responding to a GAO investigation of the president’s handling of military aid to Ukraine — a central issue that led to Trump’s impeachment. Miller replied to a GAO inquiry on the matter by deferring to a response from the White House budget office and declining to provide additional information to auditors. Miller told lawmakers Tuesday that his response was simply to avoid a duplicative response and that he was simply “answering the mail.”

The Federal Reserve, backstopped by Treasury funds, last month revealed programs designed to provide $2 trillion in support for the economy for a wide range of businesses as well as state and city governments with hemorrhaging budgets.

Trump indicated in his signing statement that he rejects requirements that inspectors general unilaterally communicate with Congress — and that he will ultimately decide whether the inspector general is able to speak to lawmakers about that issue, emphasizing that inspectors general are executive branch officials who report to him. His statement, though, ignores the long-standing independence afforded to inspectors general, which Trump has repeatedly tested during his term.

Though Democrats have raised the loudest alarms about Trump’s treatment of inspectors general, some Republicans, too, have gently encouraged him to reconsider his posture, including Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and James Lankford (R-Okla.).