“This is a heist”: Real federal auditors are horrified by the doom

The so -called Ministry of Efficiency of Elon Musk (Interference) has spent the first six weeks of the new Trump administration turning the federal government Upside downS Moved from agencyAccess to sensitive data and payment systems, all of the alleged crusade to audit government and suspension of fraud, waste and abuse. Dog has posted part of his “Findings” on his websitemany of which have been discovered to be Mistakes.

But two federal auditors with many years of experience who have worked on financial and technically audits for the government say that Doge’s actions are the most distant of what seems actual audit. They both wanted to speak on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the press.

“Honestly, comparing the real audit with what Dogg does, there is no comparison,” says one of the auditors who talks to Wired. “None of them are auditors.”

In September, in a speech During the presidential campaign, the candidate Donald Trump then said he would set up a government -headed, Musk -headed, which would make a “full financial and executive audit of the entire federal government”. Initially, Musk said he wanted to cut 2 trillion dollars from the federal budget, more than the entire discretional budget since 2023 $ 1.7 trillionS Since then, Musk has quenched his ambitions, saying he will strive to reduce $ 1 trillion in government spending. However, he claims that much of this money can be shortened by identifying waste, fraud and abuse and continues to claim that the reduction of Doge agency employees and resources is part of the audit.

Although there are certainly cases of state money transferred to fraud –Study of Government Accountability Office (GAO) Posted in 2024, it estimates that the government loses between $ 233 billion and $ 521 billion in fraud every year – even reimbursing all these costs, it will not amount to $ 1 trillion that Musk hopes to reduce from the budget.

The auditors who have talked to Wired claim that not only Musk’s claim is not true, but it seems that Dog has completely escaped the existing processes for actual rooting of waste, fraud and abuse.

“Audit, which follows generally accepted government audit standards (GAGAS), also known as Audit of Yellow Books, is being held in accordance with standards issued by the US Government Reporting Office (GAO),” the first auditor says. The audits can focus on finances, compliance or execution of an agency. “This is the gold standard on how you audit the government.”

There are usually five GAGAS audit phases, Wired auditors say: planning, evidence gathering, evaluation, reporting and tracking. Auditors work to define the audit scope, identify all applicable laws and standards and go out with an audit plan. The auditors then conduct interviews with staff, review financial records and comb through data, reports and transactions, documenting fully. From there, the auditors will evaluate this information against policies or procedures to find out if there were any supposed waste, fraud or abuse and to issue a report detailing their findings and proposing recommendations. Often these reports are made PublicS After the audit, the auditors can track the agency to ensure that changes are being made.