DOGE's "wall of receipts" riddled with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims, congressional watchdog says

Key Points:

• A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) "Wall of Receipts," which claimed billions in taxpayer savings, contained numerous inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims, overstating savings by billions of dollars.
• GAO discovered that many contracts and leases DOGE claimed to have terminated were already in the process of being eliminated before DOGE's establishment in January 2025, and some reported savings, such as a $1.7 billion Pentagon contract termination, never actually occurred.
• The watchdog criticized DOGE for lack of transparency, failure to follow its own methodology in calculating savings, and insufficient disclosure of data limitations, recommending that data quality issues be prominently displayed.
• DOGE was launched under President Trump and heavily influenced by Elon Musk, who left the government in May 2026; the agency ceased operations on July 4, 2026, without responding to GAO inquiries.
• Critics, including Democratic senators, condemned DOGE as misleading and damaging to government operations, while CBS News investigations revealed additional discrepancies and legal concerns related to contract cancellations.