The White House Is Not Complying With Inquiries From Government’s Top Watchdog

The Trump administration did not respond to a GAO letter about not responding to its investigations.

The White House is ignoring requests from the government’s chief watchdog, according to a letter from the agency, which said officials are either refusing to cooperate or not responding to inquiries at all.

Government Accountability Office General Counsel Thomas Armstrong made his complaints in a letter to White House Counsel Donald McGahn, which was made public by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The unfulfilled requests concerned McGahn’s office and the National Security Council, Armstrong said, who added that he understood it to be White House policy to ignore GAO’s inquiries. Such a directive, he said, marked a “clear departure from past policy.”

GAO’s requests that went unanswered involved a wide range of topics, from NSC’s overseas stabilization efforts to inspector general vacancies to presidential travel.

“I am concerned about the implications of this new policy regarding communication with GAO, particularly in our performance of a core function, namely, contributing to Congress’s constitutional oversight,” Armstrong said. “Given the importance of this matter, I would ask that you correct any misunderstanding that we may have or reconsider this approach to engaging with GAO.”

Armstrong asked McGahn to respond to his letter by May 25. Chuck Young, a GAO spokesman, said the White House has not met that deadline.

While Young said the stonewalling affects a small number of GAO reports, “this area was of particular concern because the lack of responsiveness is a departure from past practice.”

Armstrong’s letter was not the first time the Trump administration has butted heads with the legislative branch agency. In October, GAO released a report on Trump’s transition in which it contacted members of the Trump-Pence Transition Team that had since taken positions in the Executive Office of the President. Those individuals, as well as those in Pence’s office, did not respond to GAO’s request.

Later that month, the Environmental Protection Agency did not provide comments on a draft report or a recommendation on the long-term costs to the government of climate change.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the oversight committee’s ranking member, called those refusals to cooperate “outrageous.” In response to Armstrong’s letter, Cummings and the committee Democrats asked their chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., to hold a hearing on the matter to include testimony from McGahn and GAO.

“We are writing to request that you hold an immediate hearing on the dramatic decision by the White House to obstruct investigations by our independent investigators at the Government Accountability Office,” the Democrats said. “The committee must act swiftly to determine who instructed White House staff to refuse to provide information to GAO, as well as to evaluate the justification for this decision and its potential to impair Congress from fulfilling its constitutional oversight responsibilities.”

Robert Shea, who worked closely with GAO as the associate director for administration and government performance at the Office of Management and Budget during the George W. Bush administration and during his tenure on oversight committees on Capitol Hill, noted that Congress is a “co-equal branch of government” and GAO is Congress’ investigative arm.

“Executive branch officials should at a minimum respond to a request for meetings or conversations, and should, unless there is an exception, provide documents,” Shea said.

Doing so, he added, is typically in the agency’s best interest: “It’s not only required by law but it will provide great dividends in ensuring GAO has the full picture and context,” he said. Working with the auditors helps them “understand the executive branch’s point of view and more often than not GAO comes away with the view that the actions the executive branch has taken are reasonable.”

David Walker, who led GAO as comptroller general from 1998-2008 and oversaw a lawsuit to compel Vice President Dick Cheney to release documents regarding his secretive energy task force, recently told Government Executive that his former agency had a process in place for negotiating with agencies that refused to comply. Each project team held weekly meetings to discuss how engagements were proceeding and what challenges were arising.

“We rarely had access problems,” Walker said, “and when we did, we’d try to work through them, and in most cases we were able to.”

He added agency officials usually do not have a choice in complying: “GAO has the right of access to records and individuals to the extent that they are government employees or contractors and dealing with information in its purview.”

Shea said the White House’s refusal to cooperate went beyond the typical disputes he saw during his time at OMB.

“What seems unusual about this letter is GAO’s not quibbling about access to specific documents. That’s routinely what these fights are about,” he said, but in this case, it regards “any response at all.”

Gowdy’s office did not respond to an inquiry about the dispute with GAO or a potential hearing.

Charles S. Clark contributed to this report.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.