A group of eight former internal government watchdogs who were fired by President Trump filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging their terminations.

Summary

Eight former inspectors general fired by Trump have sued, arguing their dismissals violated federal laws protecting oversight officials.

The 2022 Securing Inspector General Independence Act requires presidents to give Congress 30 days’ notice and a detailed rationale before firing inspectors general, which Trump allegedly ignored.

The lawsuit seeks to void their removals, asserting the firings were illegal and hindered their duties.

The case is among more than four dozen that have been filed challenging Trump’s actions.

  • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
    44·
    19 hours ago

    A more accurate headline would be “8 Inspectors General Trump Attempted to Fire Sue for Illegal Interference”

    “‘Because the purported removals were illegal and hence a nullity, the actions just described constituted illegal interference with the IGs’ official duties.'”

    • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
      141·
      19 hours ago

      “nullity” sounds like a made-up word. It sounds like something the Knights that say “Ni” would ask for when they have enough shrubberies

      • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
        6·
        18 hours ago

        I mean, all words are made up, but yeah, the whole legal profession is chock full of needlessly flowery language that’s intended to keep normal people from feeling like they can ask too many questions

        That said, I’m happy to fight alongside those elitist creeps if they’re fighting against fascism. Once that’s taken care of we can talk about replacing all their stupid bar associations with actual public agencies to bring some (small-d) democratic oversight to their little clubhouses.

        • talEnglish
          1·
          10 hours ago

          I’ve spent some time reading legal material, and I’d say that most of the legal jargon exists because common English terms aren’t fully-defined. That’s fine for everyday speech, but not when one is talking about whether-or-not something is legal.

          So, for example, take mens rea. That’s Latin for “guilty mind”. Could you come up with some kind of common-language equivalent? Yeah, probably. You could maybe say “intent to act wrongly” or something like that. But there is a lot of precisely-defined legal doctrine around mens rea, and using the term makes it immediately clear that you’re talking about that, and not a more-casual meaning.

          Generally-speaking, Latin isn’t in vogue these days, isn’t more Latin being added, but there will still be phrases, even though they’re in English, that have that same sort of precise meaning and probably aren’t the phrase one would use if one was just trying to give a high-level overview to someone who isn’t familiar with the doctrine.