The inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development was fired on Tuesday, a USAID official said, a day after his office published a report critical of the Trump administration's effort to eliminate the agency.

The USAID inspector general did his job and did it well. For his trouble, the White House fired him. The move was quickly labeled the “ midnight massacre .” Late on a Friday night, in the first week of Donald Trump’s second term, the president fired 18 inspectors general without cause, sparking the first in a series of burgeoning controversies.