Trump watchdog nominees draw congressional scrutiny for political histories

A pair of President Donald Trump’s picks for agency inspectors general — Anthony D’Esposito for Labor and Cheryl Mason at the Veterans Affairs Department — have faced inquiries during their confirmation hearings in recent weeks from senators concerned about their ability to act independently from the administration. 

The pair are vying to replace former Labor and VA IGs, who, along with more than a dozen other agency watchdogs who investigate waste, fraud and abuse, were fired by Trump the first week of his second term. At the time, the president said: “I don’t know [the IGs]…but some people thought that some were unfair, some were not doing their job.” 

Both D’Esposito and Mason, testifying weeks apart, faced scrutiny due to their political support for the president and past roles working under Trump-appointed department secretaries. 

D’Esposito, a former New York Republican congressman, touted his law enforcement experience Wednesday during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing and swore to visit every IG regional office. 

“I will travel to each of the regional offices and hear from the men and women on the ground to find out what is actually happening [and] what we can do better,” he said. “Quite frankly, I think they need to feel that they're heard and that they're believed in, and that would make it a more efficient and more productive inspector general's office.”

D’Esposito also said that he would prioritize working with local police to combat child labor law violations, particularly as they relate to illegal immigration. 

Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., told D’Esposito that he had a “great background” for the role, but Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said it was “concerning” that he wouldn’t commit to continuing open investigations that were initiated by the previous Labor IG without seeing them first.

If confirmed, D’Esposito said he would lead the Labor IG office “without fear or favor.” Throughout the hearing, he said that this is a “golden age of the American worker,” which is a Trump slogan — although he argued that it is nonpartisan. 

Senators did not ask D'Esposito about past controversies, including a 2024 report from The New York Times that he may have violated House ethics rules by allegedly hiring his fiancee’s daughter as well as a woman with whom he was alleged to have had an affair. 

Democrats on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee criticized Mason during her June 4 hearing for her previous role as a senior advisor to VA Secretary Doug Collins, with ranking member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asserting the position made Mason unsuitable for a role providing oversight of the department. 

“You have been earning your pay as a loyal advisor, a member of the Collins team, an employee at his behest, a political appointee, not as a career civil servant,” Blumenthal said. “You are a political appointee as inspector general and that is why I will object to your nomination.”

Mason cited her 28 years of experience at the VA, including as chair of the Board of Veterans Appeals during Trump’s first term, and said her work as a senior advisor to Collins would align with her work as an IG. 

“The senior advisor role was to convey, gather information much like a fact finder does and convey that information to the secretary and to other senior leaders,” she said. “So it's very — it correlates well to the inspector general. The difference is the inspector general has teeth and that is very much what is needed in the department.”

Mason also flummoxed Blumenthal when she said that she wasn’t involved in any decisions or actions at the VA since Trump’s inauguration. 

“As a senior advisor, I’m not involved in any decisions,” she said, later adding “My role was to gather information and convey that information back.” 

“I can't believe that you are telling us that you haven't been involved in a single action or decision as an advisor,” Blumenthal replied. 

Democrats also questioned Mason’s assertion that she does not have a “close” relationship with Collins. 

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats, recalled that Mason, while visiting his office, remarked after seeing a Coke machine that “the secretary is a Coke guy.” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who previously served as an assistant secretary in the VA, seized on the fact that Mason’s office was in the secretary’s suite. 

“I know exactly what the inner sanctum of the secretary's office looks like and if you're behind those doors, you're in the inner sanctum, you're not just floating out there,” Duckworth said. “So you probably saw him a lot more than you are trying to lead us to believe.”

Mason said that she would prioritize implementing more than 500 open recommendations from the VA IG. She denied being involved in the mass firings of VA employees, plans to downsize the department workforce by around 80,000 employees or requiring workers to sign non-disclosure agreements. 

She was, however, behind a policy that prohibited Veterans Benefits Administration employees from contacting the VA Office of General Counsel without her approval. 

Mason committed to recusing herself from investigations of matters that she previously worked on at the VA.