Elon Musk’s DOGE team is now starting to target government agencies outside of the executive branch, notifying the U.S. Government Accountability Office — the congressional watchdog that performs studies for legislators about federal waste, fraud and abuse — that it has “assigned a team” to assail that agency, according to an internal email obtained by NOTUS.
The GAO is pushing back, directly telling the White House cost-cutting project managers at DOGE that the agency is far outside President Donald Trump’s jurisdiction.
“GAO was contacted by representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), who sought to assign a team to GAO. Today, we sent a letter to the acting administrator of DOGE stating that GAO is a legislative branch agency that conducts work for the Congress. As such, we are not subject to DOGE or executive orders,” said an internal email sent to GAO employees at 12:42 p.m. on Friday.