A top House committee chairwoman is proposing legislation that would undo President Donald Trump's move to sideline the federal watchdog originally tapped to oversee the $2 trillion coronavirus relief law.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, along with Reps. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), offered a bill Wednesday that would expand the roster of officials permitted to lead the oversight effort, ensuring that Trump's incursion on the panel would not prevent the original pick — Pentagon watchdog Glenn Fine — from keeping the position.


Fine, who until Monday was the acting inspector general for the Defense Department, was selected by fellow federal watchdogs as the chairman of a new committee meant to oversee the implementation of the massive $2 trillion coronavirus law. He, along with two dozen other inspectors general, were expected to form a powerful committee of investigators meant to ensure proper safeguards were in place.

But Trump abruptly replaced Fine on Tuesday with the EPA's inspector general, a move that effectively demoted Fine to his previous role as principal deputy inspector general for the Pentagon, making him ineligible to lead the coronavirus panel.

But Maloney's proposal would allow any senior staff of principal deputy IGs to serve on the coronavirus oversight panel, known as the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.

“We must not allow President Trump to openly flout the oversight measures that Congress put in place," Maloney, Lynch and Connolly said in a statement. "There are literally trillions of taxpayer dollars at stake, and Americans across the political spectrum want those funds to be spent without waste, fraud, abuse or profiteering."


It's unclear whether the inspectors general who initially picked Fine for the job are seeking this change in authority or if the Democrats are proposing it on their own. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who leads the broader group of inspectors general that selected Fine, has yet to weigh in on Fine's removal or indicate whether he is expected to name a successor.

Trump's move to replace Fine at the Pentagon followed the president’s repeated attacks on the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services after a report — based on testimony from hospitals across the nation — about inadequate preparations for the coronavirus crisis. He also late Friday unceremoniously ousted Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general, a move he later indicated was over his anger at Atkinson for revealing to Congress the existence of a whistleblower report that accused Trump of pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

The three House Democrats proposing the change to the PRAC panel say they hope to include it in the next emergency legislation Congress considers. House and Senate leaders are already discussing the prospect of a sequel to the $2 trillion law, as well as a near-term emergency bill to send hundreds of billions of dollars to shore up small businesses, hospitals and local governments buckling amid the crisis.