President Donald Trump vowed during the campaign to upend the status quo of the political establishment in Washington D.C. and that is exactly what he has set about doing in a dizzyingly quick fashion since taking office on Monday.

Trump's shock and awe campaign of rapid change continued Friday with the reported mass firing of more than a dozen inspectors general, according to the Daily Mail.

The sudden termination of the ostensibly independent watchdog officials tasked with auditing and investigating their respective federal departments and agencies sparked criticism and outrage from Democrats and Republicans alike and may have violated a federal law that requires advance notice to Congress before IGs can be fired.

More than a dozen IGs fired

The Washington Post reported that at least 15 inspectors general across an array of federal departments and agencies were informed late Friday evening by emails from the White House personnel director that their employment by the government had been terminated effective immediately.

Caught up in the purge were the watchdogs who provide internal oversight of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as agencies like Environmental Protection, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration, among possibly others.

Notably, many of the fired IGs had been appointed by President Trump in his first term, and the outlet noted that no apparent explanation was given for the terminations nor any indications of who might be appointed to replace them.

The pushback against the move was immediate, including from the chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, Hannibal Ware, who himself was fired as the IG of the SBA and acting IG of the SSA, in a letter sent to the head of the White House personnel office, Sergio Gor.

"I recommend that you reach out to White House Counsel to discuss your intended course of action," Ware wrote, per The Post. "At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General."

Trump WH did not provide required 30-day notice before firings

The problem here, according to The Wall Street Journal, is a bipartisan law passed by Congress in 2022 that requires the White House to notify lawmakers at least 30 days ahead of time before inspectors general can be fired, with that notification being mandated to include "substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons" for each termination.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a strong supporter of the inspectors general system of independent internal oversight, said in a statement, "There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands wasn’t provided to Congress."

Democratic lawmakers were far less forgiving or understanding, as Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the firings a "chilling purge" and "preview" of Trump's "lawless approach" to governing, per the Journal, while The Post noted that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) asserted that Trump was "dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption."

"Trump's Friday night coup" to "overthrow" the IG community

Also highly critical was Rep. Gerald Connelly (D-VA), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, who just recently had urged the IG Council to refocus on "transparency, accountability, and independence" throughout the IG community in the coming years ahead.

In response to Friday night's firings, Connelly said, "Trump’s Friday night coup to overthrow legally protected independent inspectors general is an attack on transparency and accountability, essential ingredients in our democratic form of government."

Thus far, it does not appear that President Trump or his White House have explained the reasoning behind the mass terminations or responded to requests for comment from the multiple media outlets that covered the firings.