A senior House Democrat is accusing the Trump administration of placing a political loyalist inside the Interior Department's internal watchdog, a move that critics say undermines the office's independence.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said this week that Dennis Kirk, a former White House personnel official and co-author of the Project 2025 blueprint for reshaping the federal bureaucracy, has been installed in the department's Office of the Inspector General. Interior oversees the nation's public lands, national parks, and monuments.
Huffman did not mince words: "Dennis Kirk is a fake and fraudulent watchdog. Everyone should have their eyes wide open. Each and every thing this political puppet does will be in service of Donald Trump."
The Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General declined to comment. The Hill's attempts to reach Kirk directly were inconclusive; an email appeared to go through, unlike a test to a fake address, but no response was received.
Kirk previously served in the White House Office of Personnel Management during the first Trump administration and is one of the authors of a Project 2025 chapter focused on the federal bureaucracy. This is not his first foray into oversight roles: The Washington Post reported that former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard placed Kirk in the intelligence community's watchdog last year.
Mark Greenblatt, who was ousted as Interior's inspector general during last year's purge of watchdogs, called the appointment unprecedented and a threat to the office's independence. "It's extremely out of the ordinary," Greenblatt told The Hill. In roughly two decades of work in oversight, he said, "the only time I've heard of anything like this is this same guy in the Intelligence Community IG a year ago."
Greenblatt, who was originally appointed by Trump in 2019, warned that having a political staffer embedded in the office could jeopardize whistleblower protections. "You have whistleblowers who come to the Office of Inspector General to make complaints, including complaints about senior political officials and sensitive political programs, and their names and identities are supposed to be kept confidential," he said. "But if you have an administration mole in the office, all of a sudden, does that information become fair game to the administration?"
The circumstances of Kirk's placement remain murky. Neither the Interior Department nor the White House responded to requests for comment. The development comes as Interior faces heightened scrutiny over Trump administration projects in Washington, D.C., particularly the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Recent reports indicate that contracts for work on the pool were issued through an atypical no-bid process. President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have accused "vandals" of damaging the pool, but U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has moved to drop charges against those accused, citing a "botched" installation of a coating at the site. Senate Democrats have formally requested an investigation into the matter.
The placement of Kirk raises broader concerns about the politicization of oversight offices. As noted in criticism of the administration's unilateral approach, such moves could further erode institutional checks. Meanwhile, the administration continues to push its agenda, including recent decisions on energy policy that have drawn scrutiny.
