‘It’s a Heist’: Real Federal Auditors Are Horrified by DOGE

The alleged government ministry of Elon Musk (DOGE) has spent the first six weeks of the new Trump administration in the federal government’s upside down government. I moved from one agency to another, access to sensitive data and payment systems, all of them on a supposed crusade to audit the government, stop fraud, waste, and abuse. Doge posted some “results” on its website, many of which were revealed as errors.

But two federal auditors with years of experience, who worked on both the government’s financial and technical audits, say that Duji’s actions are far from what appears to be actual scrutiny. Both asked to speak on the condition that his identity was not disclosed because they were not allowed to speak to the press.

“Frankly, compared to the real scrutiny of what Dog is doing, there is no comparison,” says one of the auditors who spoke to Wire. “None of them are audited.”

In September, in a speech during the presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump said that he would create a government competency squad, headed by Musk, which will “review and complete the entire federal government.” Musk initially said he wanted to reduce $ 2 trillion of the federal budget, which is more than the entire fully estimated budget of $ 1.7 trillion. Since then, Musk has reduced his ambitions, saying that he aims to reduce $ 1 trillion in government spending. However, he claimed that a lot of these funds could be reduced by identifying waste, fraud and abuse, and continued to demand discounts of the agency and resource staff in DOGE part of the audit.

While there are definitely cases of government funds that were excluded for fraud – the study of the government accounting office in 2024 estimated that the government loses between 233 billion dollars and 521 billion dollars for fraud every year – until all that spending does not represent to 1 trillion musk.

Account auditor who spoke to WIRED claims that Musk’s claim is not only true, but it seems that DOGE may completely avoid the current operations to connect waste, fraud and abuse.

The first auditor says: “A audit that follows the generally accepted government audit standards (Gagas), also known as the yellow book review, according to the criteria issued by the US government accountability office,” says the first auditor. Checking processes can focus on financial affairs, compliance, or agency performance. “This is the golden standard for how to scrutinize the government.”

There are generally five stages of Gagas review, reviewers tell: planning, collecting evidence, evaluation, reporting, and follow -up. Auditors determine the scope of scrutiny, identify all applicable laws and standards, and reach an audit plan. After that, auditors are conducting interviews with employees, reviewing financial records, combing through data, reports and transactions, and documenting them along the way. From there, the auditors will evaluate this information against policies or procedures to see if there is a type of alleged waste, fraud, or abuse and issuing a report that explains in detail their results and submit recommendations. Often, these reports are provided to the public. After checking, the auditor can follow the agency to ensure the changes.