The director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Russell Vought, said on Wednesday that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) should not exist.
“We’re not big fans of GAO. They are a quasi-legislative independent entity and something that shouldn’t exist,” Vought said while addressing attendees at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., according to multiple news outlets.
President Trump’s administration and some Republicans have long accused GAO, the office created in 1921, of partisanship.
The GAO says it provides Congress, the leaders of executive agencies and the American public with “timely, fact-based, non-partisan information that can be used to improve government and save taxpayers billions of dollars.”
“Our work is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is statutorily required by public laws or committee reports, per our Congressional Protocols,” GAO says on its website.
The congressional watchdog has published reports this year stating that the administration’s actions are unlawful, including one in early August, which found that the White House broke the law when it directed the National Institutes of Health to cancel hundreds of research grants.
The GAO is led by a comptroller general, who is appointed by the president and can be removed by Congress.
Gene Dodaro is the current head of GAO, serving in the role since late 2010. The terms are limited to 15 years.
Dodaro said that “clearly Russell Vought does not value transparency and accountability.”
“GAO’s mission is to support Congress in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities. During my tenure as Comptroller General alone, GAO has saved taxpayers over $1.2 trillion and resulted in tens of thousands of improvements to how federal programs work,” Dodaro said in a statement to Politico and Axios.
