# Oversight and Accountability Hub Every other tier in this map is *power* — the departments and agencies that act. This tier is the **check on that power from the inside and from the legislature**: the watchdog bodies whose job is to catch waste, fraud, abuse, illegal spending, retaliation, conflicts of interest, and surveillance overreach. They are deliberately insulated — fixed terms, for-cause removal protection, dual reporting to Congress — because an accountability body that serves at the pleasure of the official it polices is no accountability body at all. That insulation is exactly what made them the **opening target of the second-term capture project**. The pattern is consistent and was executed in the first weeks: remove the protected heads, strip the quorums, and leave the offices vacant or fill them with loyalists — clearing the watchdogs *before* the conduct they would scrutinize. This MOC collects that machinery so the dismantling is legible as a single campaign rather than a scatter of separate firings. It is the accountability-layer counterpart to [[Schedule F]] (which clears the career workforce) and the engine driving it is the same [[Unitary Executive Theory]] removal-power claim. ## The watchdog bodies - **[[Inspectors General]]** — the ~74 internal agency watchdogs (and their CIGIE council). ~17 fired overnight in January 2025; ≥21 forced out by 2026; the firings ruled unlawful but unremedied. - **[[Government Accountability Office]]** — the legislative-branch auditor and impoundment scorekeeper; found six [[Power of the Purse]] violations with dozens more pending, but its findings are not self-enforcing. - **[[Merit Systems Protection Board]]** — the civil-service appeals board; member Cathy Harris removed, quorum lost, its independence functionally ended — the key obstacle to [[Schedule F]] neutralized. - **[[Office of Special Counsel]]** — whistleblower protection and [[Hatch Act]] enforcement; Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger fired after briefly being reinstated. - **[[Office of Government Ethics]]** — the conflict-of-interest and financial-disclosure watchdog; director removed and replaced with a sitting Cabinet officer. - **[[Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board]]** — the surveillance watchdog; quorum stripped on inauguration day, silencing oversight of [[NSA]] / [[Section 702]] programs. ## The throughline These six were not attacked at random. Together they form the federal government's **immune system** — the bodies that detect and respond to institutional abuse. The IGs and GAO detect illegal spending; MSPB and OSC protect the employees who report it; OGE polices the conflicts; PCLOB watches the surveillance. Disabling all of them in the opening weeks is what converts the rest of this map from a system with internal checks into one without them. For the KB, this MOC is where the abstract claim of "executive overreach" becomes a concrete, datable inventory. ## Related - [[Federal Agencies]] — the parent executive-branch MOC - [[Schedule F]] — the workforce-clearing counterpart - [[Unitary Executive Theory]] — the removal-power doctrine driving the purge - [[Power of the Purse]] — the appropriations check GAO enforces - [[Administrative State]] — the apparatus being dismantled - [[Congress]] — the branch to which IGs and GAO report