Lawfare Daily: What Does the Inspector General Do?
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
Jack Goldsmith sits down with Glenn Fine, the former principal deputy Inspector General of the Department of Defense and former Acting IG of the Department of Defense, and author of the new book, “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government.” They discuss the history of inspectors general and early constitutional concerns about the role that inspectors general play, Fine’s experiences at both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, the 2022 inspector general reforms and their significance, and Fine’s own proposed reforms to improve inspector general oversight.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:18.2 | Also, check out Lawfare's other podcast offerings, Rational Security, Chatter, |
| 0:25.2 | Lawfare No Bull, and The Aftermath. Every news alert in 2024 seemed to bring new questions, |
| 0:34.6 | but fear not because lawfare has answers. It's time for our annual Ask Us |
| 0:39.3 | Anything podcast, an opportunity for you to ask Lawfare this year's most burning questions. |
| 0:44.4 | You can submit your question by leaving a voicemail at 202-743-5831, or by sending a recording of |
| 0:53.9 | yourself asking your question to Ask Us Anything Lawfare at |
| 0:58.5 | gmail.com. |
| 1:02.3 | So there's an interesting dynamic between the agency and Congress and the IG is reporting to both |
| 1:10.0 | and some people have called it akin to straddling a |
| 1:12.9 | barbed wire fence. Sometimes it feels that way. But ultimately, you have to be straightforward and |
| 1:18.4 | credible with both of them to be effective. It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Jack Goldsmith of Harvard |
| 1:24.8 | Law School with Glenn Fine, the former Inspector General of the Department of Justice, and the former acting inspector general of the Department of Defense. |
| 1:33.3 | IGs are not foolproof and it's not a panacea. It depends on the right people being in the office who have the backbone to stand up and to do the important work that needs to be done. |
| 1:46.0 | It also relies on the agency head taking seriously what the IG does. So if the IG even makes a |
| 1:51.3 | recommendation, the agency head ignores it or doesn't cooperate, that's a problem. |
| 1:56.3 | Today we're talking about Glenn's new book, Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and |
| 2:01.6 | Accountable Government. |
| 2:02.6 | Glenn, you were an Inspector General for 11 years in the Justice Department, and then |
| 2:08.6 | for about five years, I think you were the acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense. |
... |
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