House Oversight and Accountability Committee ranking member Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) encouraged agencies to protect whistleblowers and uphold inspector general independence — noting past interference under the first Trump administration. Connolly on Wednesday sent letters, obtained by The Hill, to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) and the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC), two agencies active in ensuring inspector general independence and protecting the rights of government whistleblowers. The letter to OSC asks the agency to contact the panel’s Democrats “any time your independence or transparency is undermined” — a sign both of the committee’s interests in whistleblowers and how it plans to position itself under a second Trump administration.  The letter to CIGIE outlines a string of incidents during the first Trump administration, most notably firing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, after he raised concerns from Alexander Vindman that became the subject of Trump’s first impeachment. “During the first Trump Administration, President Trump removed IGs that enforced transparency and accountability that he found to be inconvenient or that exposed his own abuses of power,” Connolly wrote, using an abbreviation for inspectors general. “When appointing new IGs, President Trump often left IG positions vacant or picked political appointees at the agencies who already worked at the agency, a clear conflict of interest,” Connolly wrote, asking CIGIE to “continue to review and recommend independent and qualified IG candidates to the White House.” The letter to OSC is focused on the agency's role in protecting whistleblowers and responding to potential Hatch Act violations of those who run afoul of laws prohibiting electioneering by federal employees. Connolly described the first Trump administration as one with “systematic attacks on whistleblowers” that could also chill reporting of wrongdoing under a second Trump term. “OSC can only do its work if whistleblowers know they are safe to come forward to report misconduct. During his last term, President Trump investigated, publicly attacked, and stripped key protections away from whistleblowers who felt it was their patriotic duty to stand up against abuses of power,” Connolly wrote, referencing Vindman and employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) who were retaliated against for raising concerns. The EPA employee, Kevin Chmielewski, raised concerns about the spending habits of former Administrator Scott Pruitt, while Grant Turner blew the whistle on how USAGM’s CEO politicized the agency and interfered with its editorial independence. During the first Trump administration, numerous officials were also found to have run afoul of the Hatch Act, most notably former aide Kellyanne Conway, whom OSC described as violating the law in an  “egregious, notorious, and ongoing” manner. A report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington less than two years into the Trump administration found Conway violated the law more than 50 times. “OSC must ensure that officials in the next Trump Administration do not use their powerful positions for electoral gain instead of public service,” Connolly wrote.