…the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General on Wednesday effectively cleared the EPA of allegations of bias in its quest to preemptively kill a proposed mine in southwest Alaska.

The EPA’s IG—which works for the EPA’s Administrator—reached this conclusion even though it was “unable” (it claimed) to get hold of two years’ worth of emails from a key, carefully unnamed, retired employee. The IG claims in the report to have subpoenaed that worthy, but there’s no indication the IG ever bothered even to try to enforce the subpoena.

What else could we expect from an “inspection” function that works for, and is beholden to, the head of the agency it’s putatively inspecting?