Two government watchdogs will investigate the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive Treasury payments systems, they confirmed in letters to Congress.
In a letter to Senate Democrats, Treasury Deputy Inspector General Loren Sciurba said that the office opened an audit into the Bureau of Fiscal Service’s payments systems on February 6th. The IG’s office will investigate whether adequate controls were in place to grant access to the system, and to ensure that only legally sound payments are disbursed. The bureau’s system is the one that a DOGE staffer had been given access to with the ability to both read and write code, Wired reported, though Trump officials denied he could alter the system. The Treasury’s payments systems manage the flow of more than $5 trillion in payments for services like Social Security benefits and veterans’ pay.
“[W]e recognize the danger that improper access or inadequate controls can pose to the integrity of sensitive payment systems”
The IG’s office expects the audit to be completed in August, but promised to give “interim updates” should they discover “critical issues” before then. “[W]e recognize the danger that improper access or inadequate controls can pose to the integrity of sensitive payment systems,” Sciurba writes. A letter from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) similarly confirms the congressional watchdog will investigate and coordinate with the IG’s office.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) shared the letters, which responded to their requests for the offices to conduct independent probes into DOGE’s access to the Treasury systems. They asked the investigators to determine what information DOGE staffers accessed, whether they had appropriate clearances to do so, and whether any guardrails were put in place to prevent conflicts of interest or personal gain for DOGE head Elon Musk’s businesses. Warren found the Treasury Department’s earlier response to her inquiry about the payments system access from the Treasury Department to raise “more questions than answers,” prompting her and colleagues to turn to the independent watchdogs.
Toward the start of his term, President Donald Trump ousted more than a dozen inspectors general from agencies, despite federal law requiring 30 days’ notice to Congress to dismiss the Senate-confirmed investigators. The Treasury Department’s IG was among those Trump sought to oust, The Washington Post reports, but since Sciurba is a career civil servant that is leading the office after the acting inspector general retired in December, he couldn’t be kicked out entirely. While the president has authority to nominate and remove IGs, who are supervised by agency heads, they can’t be blocked from auditing that agency, and also dually report to Congress.
