Comptroller general says impoundment violations are a ‘high priority’ for GAO

Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified Tuesday that his agency, the Government Accountability Office, is investigating the Trump administration’s early-term efforts to claw back federal funding across government for potential violations of the Impoundment Control Act.

His comments came at a hearing of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on the publication of GAO’s biennial High Risk List of federal programs that could be susceptible to waste, fraud or abuse. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., asked about GAO’s response to the Trump administration’s rapid-fire mass firings, contract cancellations and apparent move toward shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development, mostly at the behest of Elon Musk and his DOGE operatives.

“Mr. Dodaro, I have great respect for you and for your service, but with due respect, this is not a time for caution in speaking out,” Khanna said. “Your predecessor, Elmer Staats, took Gerald Ford to court because Ford was not willing to comply with the Impoundment [Control] Act. This was not a decision that Staats made, but lawyers, but Staats spoke out, but I wanted to ask you whether what you think the president is doing pausing these payments automatically is a violation of the Impoundment Act.”

Dodaro said his office has already sent letters to the administration requesting their legal rationale for pausing payments and cancelling contracts, as well as monitoring the administration’s legal positions in the various lawsuits seeking to block those actions

“We’re going to make these decisions as fast as possible,” he said. “I fully intend to carry out our responsibilities under the Impoundment Control Act expeditiously and thoroughly . . . I’ll do it as quickly as I can, but we need to be careful and thorough, because the next step for us is to go to court ourselves. If we say there’s been impoundment and money isn’t released in a certain period of time, we have to go to court.”

“Are you prepared to do that?” Khanna asked.

“Yes, but I need to be prepared and careful when I go there because I want to win,” Dodaro responded. “We’re doing this as fast and thoroughly as possible.”

But Dodaro warned that complicating matters is the fact that the government is currently operating under a continuing resolution, meaning the language directing the spending of taxpayer money is less specific than it would be had Congress approved full appropriations legislation for fiscal 2025.

“There are a lot of factors that go into making these decisions, and one is how specific Congress was in appropriations law to begin with,” he said. “We need to take that into account—this year, we’re in a continuing resolution, so we don’t have a lot of specifics for this fiscal year . . . There are a lot of details and legal considerations to sort through, but this is a high priority for us, and we’re going to execute our responsibilities.”