President Donald Trump has nominated Dennis Kirk, a Project 2025 author and former adviser to Tulsi Gabbard, as the Department of the Interior’s inspector general, positioning a conservative operative to oversee any investigation into the botched $16 million Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation.
Kirk created a training video for Project 2025 and wrote an essay warning against “progressive ideology” in the federal workforce. As inspector general, he would control ethics investigations across the Interior Department, including scrutiny of Trump’s Washington building projects.
Representative Jared Huffman called Kirk a “fake and fraudulent watchdog,” adding, “It’s no surprise the White House suddenly wants its own man inside the one place that Trump’s cronies still have reason to fear.”
Former Interior inspector general Mark Lee Greenblatt warned the nomination would have a chilling effect on whistleblowers. “Who would jeopardize their careers by submitting a complaint about an administration official to an I.G. who is avowedly aligned with the administration?” he said.
