The Government Accountability Office turned down the assignment of a team by DOGE
The U.S. Government Accountability Office is not a Presidential Subsequently-Occured Agency for Auditing Government Spending
The Department of Government Efficiency is trying to get more involved with the 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 GAO is a legislative branch agency that conducts work for Congress according to a letter sent by the watchdog on Friday. “We are not subject to any of the Executive Orders.”
A notice shared with NPR by an employee who is not authorized to speak publicly said that GAO leadership sent a letter and notification to members of Congress in an announcement to employees Friday afternoon.
The GAO regularly release reports that highlight ways to improve government efficiency, like the May 13 review 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.
It’s not the first time DOGE has sought to embed staffers at an organization outside of the executive branch. Several privately incorporated nonprofits that were created by Congress and receive federal funding but are not considered government agencies have been in touch with the DOGE over the last couple of weeks.
In a lawsuit brought by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, DOGe tried to assign a team to review operations just a day after Trump attempted to fire some of the board members.
There are close to 40 entities within and adjacent to the government where DOGE and the Trump administration have focused their attention recently.
Embedding Vera Institute into the State Department: Addressing the Concerns of the National Labor Relations Board after a Telling Whistler Disclosure
In an Apr. 15 call, Cavanaugh said his request to embed into Vera was “void” — not because Vera is a nongovernmental organization, but after learning from Vera staff that the Department of Justice had terminated all of the organization’s grants, according to notes Vera Institute staff shared with NPR.
Growing tensions between Congress and the executive branch can be traced back to DOGE’s efforts to embedded at GAO. The firing last week of the Librarian of Congress by the President raised concerns among members of Congress.
Cavanaugh’s partner in much of the small agency outreach is Justin Fox, a 21-year-old college student who, according to his LinkedIn profile, is a college student at Indiana University Bloomington and the founder of Vantix Advisors, a “cutting-edge blockchain consulting firm.”
After joining the government less than a week after, Fox was involved in meetings about a variety of issues such as IAF, the Wilson Center, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and more.
The top Democrats on the House Oversight and Administration Committees shared a copy of a copy of the email Fox sent to the GAO.
Cavanaugh and Fox were detailed to the National Labor Relations Board one day after NPR reported on a whistleblower disclosure alleging sensitive data left the agency’s network after DOGE staffers were given unfettered access to its systems.
The two have also been assisted at times by Justin Aimonetti, an attorney who previously worked as an associate at the firm Dechert LLP. Aimonetti is detailed to DOGE from the GSA.
NPR has identified six DOGE staffers based at the General Services Administration who have been primarily responsible for meeting with these independent organizations: Nate Cavanaugh, Justin Fox, Justin Aimonetti, Jack Stein, Jonathan Mendelson and Marshall Wood.
Mendelson started at GSA on Apr. 9, Stein started Apr. 15, and Wood started Apr. 21, according to two government employees not authorized to speak publicly about DOGE’s activities.
At the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, DOGE’s email came on Apr. 17, requesting a meeting to assign a team to the small federal agency, which advises the president and Congress on preserving the nation’s heritage. The agency has 42 people working for it.
An initial video call took place on Apr. 22, followed by an in-person meeting the next day at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., according to Lynne Richmond, ACHP’s acting director of communications, education and outreach.
The DOGE representatives wanted a general overview of the ACHP and its responsibilities. They wanted information about our budget, staff, and contracts. In the last few days, the team has been detailed to ACHP, where they are in the process of being onboard.
Two sources who are not authorized to speak about Doge’s operations said that staffers scheduled meetings with officials from several organizations.
The access board, which develops accessibility standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act, had a meeting with members of the DOGE in Washington on April 22, according to the spokeswoman for the board.
The DOGE Study of the Dismantling of IMLS, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Delta Regional Authority
The Truman Scholarship Foundation, the Office of a Native American Relocation, and the Denali Commission were non-committal when asked about it.
Cavanaugh accompanied Trump’s newly appointed acting director to IMLS headquarters on Mar. 20, where they took control of its computer systems, according to court filings. Soon after, IMLS’s entire staff of 70 was put on administrative leave. (A federal judge has since paused Trump’s attempt to eliminate IMLS and six other agencies.)
At the National Endowment for the Humanities, Cavanaugh and Fox notified nearly 1,500 grantees that their awards were terminated, using a non-governmental Microsoft email account, according to a lawsuit challenging the agency’s dismantling.
They then demanded NEH leadership terminate roughly 75% of its staff, leaving it a “shell of an agency that Congress established and has consistently funded,” the lawsuit said.
The proposal by the president calls for the closing of nearly two dozen independent agencies, including the Marine Mammal Commission, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and the Delta Regional Authority.
At other agencies, employees are waiting to see what comes of DOGE’s review. Following DOGE’s visits to Peace Corps headquarters in April, the agency that sends volunteers abroad has told staff to prepare for cuts.
The Peace Corps spokesperson said the agency “remains operational” and has no plans to withdraw volunteers serving abroad. The National Peace Corps Association, an alumni group, has raised concerns that “an already lean agency will be forced to sacrifice services for current Peace Corps applicants, Volunteers, and alumni.”
The Peace Corps was added to the lawsuit last week that is challenging the Trump administration’s reforms of the federal government. Some agencies have been temporarily stopped from cutting jobs and putting workers on administrative leave.
That includes the Legal Services Corporation, which funds legal aid for those who can’t afford it, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, which operates under the name NeighborWorks America and provides grants, training, and assistance to community development groups, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to public radio and television stations.
The Legal Services Corporation and NeighborWorks America will not be deemed a department, agency or instrumentality of the Federal Government under the laws created to create them.
Source: How DOGE has tried to embed beyond the executive branch
The Technicolor of the U.S. Institute of Justice: A State-of-the-Art Analysis and a New Interpretation of Trump’s Destroy of the GSA
Carl Rauscher, director of communications and media relations at LSC, confirmed that Ron Flagg met with the staff of the DOGE. “We provided information they requested,” Raucher said.
NeighborWorks America declined to comment on its interactions with DOGE. “NeighborWorks America is aligned with the administration’s housing goals,” Douglas Robinson, a spokesperson for the nonprofit, said in a statement to NPR. “Like the administration, we believe in the efficient delivery of financial resources and technical expertise that sustains and builds affordable housing supply.”
Doge wants to embedded staff at Vera and other non-government organizations that are not government agencies, but the person did not respond to the request for comment.
Musk says he is scaling back the time he’s spending working in the federal government, but that does not mean DOGE’s work is scaling back. The busy schedules of staffers like Fox who have been onboarded as full-time GSA employees shows that the work will continue into the future.
According to court filings, he was detailed to several other agencies, including the U.S. African Development Foundation, the Inter-American Foundation, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
According to four GSA employees who spoke on condition of anonymity because of their fear of backlash, Cavanaugh first came to the GSA in February and met with many technical staff and interviewed them about their jobs.
Cavanaugh currently serves as the appointed president of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Shortly after being named the acting director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness — one of the agencies Trump’s budget proposal calls for eliminating — Cavanaugh placed its entire staff on administrative leave.
Nearly all of the meetings have been conducted by a small group of young staffers, including at least one college student, with no federal government experience and little apparent knowledge about what these entities do, according to more than a dozen lawsuits, documents shared with NPR and interviews with employees who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly and fear retaliation from the Trump administration.
The independent Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the private, nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice were rejected by the GAO due to being government agencies.
DOGE dismantled the U.S. Institute of Peace, a site that hosted a daylong standoff between staffers and representatives of a cost-cutting initiative.
Source: How DOGE has tried to embed beyond the executive branch
A Response to a DOGE Staffer’s May 13 Message on ‘Getting a Dooge Team in the Oval Office’
In response to a DOGE staffer’s May 13 message asking “to discuss getting a DOGE team assigned to the agency,” the Government Accountability Office’s response was straightforward.