Treasury Inspector General Launches Audit Of “Fraudulent Payments” Found By DOGE

The US Treasury’s Department of Inspector General is launching an investigation into “alleged fraudulent payments” found by Elon Musk’s DOGE team, and will analyze the past two years of transactions within the government’s payment system. The IG will also review the security controls to the system after Democratic senators freaked out over the access provided by Trump to Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

According to a Friday letter by Treasury Deputy IG Loren J. Sciurba, the audit will take approximately six months.

“We expect to begin our fieldwork immediately,” Sciurba wrote. “Given the breadth of this effort, the audit will likely not be completed until August; however, we recognize the danger that improper access or inadequate controls can pose to the integrity of sensitive payment systems. As such, if critical issues come to light before that time, we will issue interim updates and reports.”

Musk claims to have found massive waste, fraud and abuse – and has launched an official government website for DOGE that will track how large the US government is, and how much DOGE has saved. The site (which still needs a little ‘fine tuning‘) also has an ‘unconstitutionality index,’ which compares the number of rules passed by Congress in 2024 vs. the number of agency rules created out of thin air.

According to the report, the audit comes after Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Ron Wyden (OR) pushed for an inquiry at the US Treasury. On Wednesday, Warren, Wyden, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raising the alarm over DOGE (and not what they’ve found, of course).

“Your lack of candor about these events is deeply troubling given the threats to the economy and the public from DOGE’s meddling, and you need to provide a clear, complete, and public accounting of who accessed the systems, what they were doing, and why they were doing it,” wrote the lawmakers.

In short:

Several lawsuits have also been filed by labor unions and advocacy groups against DOGE’s potential unauthorized access to sensitive Treasury payment systems, while five former treasury secretaries (who ostensibly oversaw massive fraud), have similarly sounded the alarm over what they say are risks associated with DOGE accessing sensitive Treasury Department payment systems.

Of course, if the following is true, DOGE may be 100% within its right to access these systems after actually having been established by the Obama administration.

President Trump and Elon’s brilliant method for setting up DOGE pic.twitter.com/zQY4R9mF6B

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 13, 2025

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