Dems Warn Trump Is Trying To ‘Ram Through’ His Ally As Head of GAO During Lame Duck

Congressional Democrats declare leading Republicans are attempting to hurry through the choice procedure for the next head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO)– a guard dog company housed within the legal branch– in order to let President Donald Trump location among his allies into the position before Democrats reclaim control of Congress in January.

A group of leading Democrats who are charged with advising prospects to be the next head of GAO– Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-MI) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA)– put out a declaration Wednesday afternoon, stating Republicans provided “less than 24 hours” to kip down their submissions of prospects.

“This is plainly a sham to allow President Trump to select a handpicked candidate to lead Congress’ guard dog,” Democrats stated in the joint declaration. “We can not enable President Trump to set up a fox in the henhouse at a company Congress depends on to offer independent, nonpartisan oversight, and expose waste, scams, and abuse throughout the Trump Administration.”

GAO– the nonpartisan federal firm that analyzes how federal taxpayer dollars are invested– was led by Comptroller General Gene Dodaro till in 2015. Dodaro, who headed the firm for 15 years, retired at the end of 2025. The company is presently headed by Acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, waiting on Trump to choose its next irreversible leader.

Now, Democrats declare Trump, in yet another lame duck session effort to protect power, is attempting to speed up the positioning of among his allies to lead the firm that has actually been a thorn in his administration’s side. Because Trump took workplace in January, GAO has actually released a number of choices discovering impoundment infractions by the Trump administration. Whoever gets designated to be the next comptroller general will acquire the continuous probes into the exact same executive branch overreach concerns.

While the company concluded consistently that the Trump administration broke the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, they have actually not done something about it to take legal action against the Trump administration for the infractions it has actually recognized– in spite of some bipartisan assistance from congressional legislators. A Trump loyalist leading the charge in GAO will successfully ensure an impoundment infraction claim would likely never ever come.

Specialists have actually been fretted for a long time that Trump would change Dodaro with a patriot that will lead the company for the next 15 years.

“It is most likely that Gene Dodaro is changed with a Trump lackey,” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget plan policy at the Center for American Progress, informed TPM right before Dodaro retired.

Kogan stated that if Dodaro is changed by a Trump patriot, he fears the company will stop doing the “fundamental part of what they have actually been doing, which is examinations, public oversight and responsibility.”

The Washington Sun reported in October that the administration has actually drifted the concept of nominating Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Director Eric Ueland to head GAO. He is a crucial ally of President Trump’s who worked carefully with OMB Director Russ Vought– the main orchestrator of the Trump administration’s efforts to take funds licensed by Congress.

Following Dodaro’s retirement, a bipartisan panel of legislators– comprised of your home Speaker, Senate Majority Leader, Senate and House Minority Leaders, the president professional tempore, Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee along with the Chair and Ranking Member of your home Oversight Committee– were expected to come together and advise a replacement to the president. President Donald Trump would then choose a prospect topic to Senate verification.

Nearly a year later on, the Democrats on the panel state “Republican leaders have actually never ever assembled the Commission for conferences, and the Commission has actually not spoken with a single prospect for this vital function, regardless of duplicated demands to start the procedure over the last 2 years.”

The absence of seriousness and bipartisanship, leading Democrats included, runs “counter to the last time a GAO Comptroller was chosen in 2010 in a yearlong, bipartisan procedure.”

“Every Member of Congress who values independent oversight and excellent stewardship of taxpayer dollars ought to call this out for what it is– a transparent effort to ram through another Trump crony at the 11th hour, and undercut Congress’ capability to carry out reliable oversight of the Trump Administration,” Democrats stated.