The Department of Government Efficiency is continuing its attempts to expand its reach beyond executive branch agencies, this time seeking to embed in an independent legislative watchdog that finds waste, fraud and abuse in the government.
But the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a legislative branch entity that helps audit government spending and suggest ways to make it more efficient, rejected that request on Friday by noting that GAO is not subject to presidential executive orders.
The request to GAO had cited President Trump's Jan. 20 executive order creating DOGE, which, despite its name, is not a formal agency.
DOGE's request to GAO and its response was first reported by NOTUS.
A spokesperson for GAO confirmed DOGE's outreach, and reiterated that "as a legislative branch agency, GAO is not subject to Executive Orders and has therefore declined any requests to have a DOGE team assigned to GAO."
In an announcement to employees posted Friday afternoon, GAO leadership said they sent a letter to Acting Administrator of DOGE Amy Gleason and notified members of Congress, according to a copy of the notice shared with NPR by an employee not authorized to speak publicly.
The GAO regularly releases reports that highlight ways to improve government efficiency, like a May 13 review of federal programs with fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative actions it says could save over $100 billion in spending. But there's been little overlap between GAO's work and DOGE's actions so far.
Posted by John3262005
1 Comment
Unitary executive theory is deranged enough as it is, but this new species that holds any and all federal agencies as being under the domain of the executive branch is absolutely insane.
We desperately need a McCarthyist style purging of all unitary executive theorists from the federal government and entire US political system.
Being a monarchist is far worse than being a communist.