Republican senators who press President Trump to stop undermining agency inspectors general are absolutely right. Inspectors general are a crucial means for Congress and the president alike to provide oversight of the sprawling federal bureaucracy, and thus to save taxpayers from waste and fraud.

Trump has been leading something of a war against inspectors general for several months now, with little regard for the spirit of the laws governing those jobs and almost no appreciation for their utility or importance. His various moves against existing inspectors general drew mild early pushback from a few senators of both parties, but it wasn’t clear if the pushback would continue.