Trump nominates Project 2025 author Dennis Kirk as Interior Department inspector general

Aug 10, 2026

President Donald Trump nominated Project 2025 co-author Dennis Kirk to lead the Department of the Interior's Office of the Inspector General. The nomination has sparked intense backlash from Democrats and oversight experts, who argue Kirk's political ties compromise watchdog independence. The appointment comes as the office faces demands to investigate a botched, $16 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, as well as pending ethics probes into senior administration officials.

Dennis Kirk Interior IG nomination

▪Dennis Kirk previously worked in the Office of Personnel Management during Donald Trump's first presidential term and served as an adviser to former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
▪President Donald Trump nominated Dennis Kirk on August 7, 2026, to serve as the inspector general for the Department of the Interior.
▪Donald Trump previously nominated Dennis Kirk to serve as chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board during Trump's first term, but Kirk never received a Senate floor vote.

Project 2025 authorship background

▪Dennis Kirk created a training video for Project 2025 and authored an essay warning against progressive ideology in the federal workforce.
▪Dennis Kirk co-authored a chapter in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 policy initiative focused on managing the civil service and federal workforce.

Reflecting Pool renovation failure

▪The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia dropped felony vandalism charges against former Olympian David Hearn and others, stating the Reflecting Pool damage was likely caused by faulty contractor work.
▪The $16 million Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation suffered severe peeling and tattered blue paint after hydrogen peroxide was added to kill algae.
▪The Department of Justice attributed the Reflecting Pool damage to a rushed construction process intended to complete the project before the America 250 Independence Day celebrations in 2026.
▪Atlantic Industrial Coatings was contracted for nearly $6.9 million on April 3, 2026, for the Reflecting Pool project, while Green Water Solutions received a no-bid contract exceeding $1.7 million.

Democratic opposition to appointment

▪Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich requested that the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General investigate what agency employees knew regarding the Reflecting Pool's engineering issues.
▪Representative Jared Huffman called Dennis Kirk a fake and fraudulent watchdog, asserting that Kirk's actions would serve Donald Trump rather than the public interest.

Inspector general independence concerns

▪The Trump administration assigned political appointees to inspector general offices at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Labor for the first time in recent history.
▪Former Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt stated that Dennis Kirk's political background and close ties to the administration make it impossible to credibly meet the test of independence.
▪Oversight expert Steve Katz argued that Dennis Kirk's nomination violates statutory requirements that inspector general appointments be made without regard to political affiliation.

Pending Interior ethics investigations

▪Prior to his formal nomination, Dennis Kirk had already been installed as a political appointee within the Department of the Interior's Office of the Inspector General.
▪The Department of the Interior's Office of the Inspector General is currently weighing serious ethics investigations into senior officials within the Trump administration.