Democrats Are Gearing Up to Investigate the Trump Administration. It Won’t Be Easy

In late September, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency titled “DOGE: Congress and the Public Lack Assurance That Systems and Data Were Protected at Multiple Agencies.” In it, the GAO revealed that multiple executive branch agencies had refused to fully cooperate with investigators about the extent and nature of DOGE’s access to sensitive systems and information. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which DOGE and the Trump administration gutted in the early months of the president’s second term, sent GAO a letter accusing investigators of bias and alleging the report was “misleading.”

The report, just the latest example of the Trump administration seeking to dodge congressional oversight, raises questions about what—if any—avenues the legislature has to enforce accountability, or even access basic information about what the government has been doing.