Mark Greenblatt

Senate Democrats blocked the Stop Insider Trading Act, saying it didn't go far enough.

Mark Greenblatt is a former Interior Department Inspector General, also a former chairman of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and now the host of a brand-new program on Federal News Network, Power and Principle.

He talked with Federal News Network's Jared Serbu about the potential of a congressional stock trading ban and the new show.

Well, Mark, first of all, I wanna thank you and welcome you to the Federal News Network family, and we're excited about the show starting tomorrow.

And all of these f- you know, people are, are having an impact, uh, in their specific communities and their specific sectors.

And so it's how can we learn from them? What do we n- as an audience member need to, need to know, uh, from their experience?

Former Interior Department Inspector General and new host on Federal News Network, Mark Greenblatt.

We'll post a link to Power in Principle at federalnewsnetwork.com.

[upbeat music] Welcome to Power and Principle on Federal News Network.

Now, your host, Mark Lee Greenblatt.

Welcome to Power and Principle, a new show from Federal News Network.

I'm Mark Lee Greenblatt, former inspector general of the US Department of the Interior and former chair of the Council of Inspectors General, and I am thrilled to host this new show.

The questions we'll explore are playing out in every day in Washington and in communities across the country.

How do leaders make sound decisions under pressure? What happens when institutions lose the public's trust? And how do we hold power accountable while helping organizations work better? I'll be speaking with policymakers, journalists, experts, investigators, and others who have faced these questions firsthand.

We are talking with Dan Abrams, journalist, best-selling author, and legal expert on Power & Principle on the Federal News Network.

We'll be back in a second.

Since the mass firings, the president has appointed some government watchdogs with overtly political backgrounds, and they have directed their investigations toward allegations of fraud at the state level instead of targeting the agencies that they are meant to scrutinize.

Mark Greenblatt, who was the inspector general for the Interior Department before Mr. Trump fired him last year, said Mr. Pulte is comparing apples to oranges in his criticism of the FHFA Inspector General's office's size.

Unlike some other offices, it has a broad mandate to investigate mortgage fraud across the country.

In my 20 years in the oversight community, it is unheard of for an agency head to cut an OIG's budget and effectively try to starve them out of existence, he said.

But, he said, the figures the task force has cited are quote, assertions that have not been validated by independent parties.

Over the years, various inspectors general have struggled to quantify their anti-fraud work in broad strokes, as the task force has done, given the wide differences in how different agencies investigate cases and to measure impact, said Mark Greenblatt, a former inspector general for the Interior Department who once led the Council of Inspectors General.

It is entirely possible that the task force's figures are accurate, he added.

But given that Mr. Trump fired more than a dozen independent inspectors general, including Mr. Greenblatt, at the beginning of his second term and installed political allies in their place, there's no one that can look at those numbers in detail and share with the American people whether they are valid, transparent, and that the methodology is sound, he said.