Don Berthiaume, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s internal watchdog office, faced probing Senate questions on Wednesday about his independence, including his reluctance to characterize the January 6 Capitol violence as an attack.
During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Berthiaume repeatedly declined to use the word “attack” to describe the events of January 6, 2021. “I don’t know if I would use the term ‘attack’,” he told senators, describing instead “activity outside the Capitol—protests and such—and there was violence on the Capitol grounds.” When pressed by Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, Berthiaume acknowledged the “physical violence” that day but maintained that the term attack “seems to imply that there was a coordinated effort to attack specific things.”
Blumenthal said he posed questions about the 2020 election results and January 6 specifically to test the nominee’s independence from the White House. Earlier in the hearing, Blumenthal asked Berthiaume who won the 2020 election—a question that has become a standard test for Trump administration nominees. Berthiaume said President Joe Biden had been “certified” by the Senate as the winner and denied discussing his answer in advance with the White House.
Berthiaume brings a decade of experience as an attorney in the DOJ Inspector General’s office, where he investigated misconduct within the Justice Department. He also served in oversight roles at the Department of Housing and Urban Development before returning to the DOJ as a senior advisor, where he was serving when Trump nominated him for the permanent position in April 2026.
The confirmation hearing comes against a backdrop of escalating tension between Trump and the inspector general system itself. In January 2025, Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general across federal agencies without providing Congress with the required advance notice, a move that a federal court later found to be likely unlawful. During the hearing, Berthiaume agreed with that court’s conclusion that the terminations broke the law.
The position of inspector general was created by Congress in the 1970s as a post-Watergate reform to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse within executive branch agencies. The office is intended to operate independently, and federal law requires that the president provide Congress with advance notice before removing an inspector general. Berthiaume’s nomination signals Trump’s intent to fill the DOJ watchdog role permanently after relying on acting inspectors general since early 2026.
Sources
- CNN — Berthiaume’s refusal to call January 6 violence an attack, his answers on the 2020 election, Trump’s mass firing of inspectors general in January 2025, and his agreement with the court ruling on those removals
- Los Angeles Times — Berthiaume’s 10 years as an attorney in the DOJ Inspector General’s office investigating DOJ misconduct
- Maryland Daily Record — Berthiaume’s background as a career government attorney and his work as an investigator at the DOJ Office of the Inspector General
- Government Executive — Berthiaume’s nomination as a career IG employee and his service as a senior advisor to the DOJ IG office
