Congress
Time for Congress to find a new top watchdog for Trump to nominate
For the first time in nearly two decades, Congress is on the hunt for a new boss at the federal government’s top watchdog agency.
With the retirement of comptroller general Gene Dodaro, longtime Government Accountability Office employee Orice Williams Brown is stepping in to lead the more-than-3,000-person agency in an acting capacity.
Congressional leaders are now supposed to recommend candidates for President Donald Trump to nominate for a 15-year term. If confirmed by the Senate, that person will lead the agency as it works through dozens of investigations into whether the Trump administration broke the law throughout 2025 by withholding billions of dollars Congress previously approved.
“We’re going to look for someone who’s honest,” Sen. Rand Paul said in an interview. “I think it would be a mistake to get somebody who’s been real active in political processes.”
As chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Kentucky Republican is by law granted a seat on the bipartisan panel of 10 lawmakers tasked with recommending at least three potential replacements for Trump to consider nominating.
Paul and many other top Republicans on Capitol Hill are fans of GAO. But this past year, other conservatives and Trump’s senior advisers have openly ridiculed the legislative branch office charged with auditing federal agencies, aiding lawmakers in carrying out their constitutional duties and challenging White House actions that encroach on Congress’ power.
In recent months, the comptroller general has also been under pressure to take legal action against the Trump administration for withholding federal cash — especially after the Supreme Court appeared to imply this fall that the GAO head is the only plaintiff with standing to sue under decades-old impoundment law.
The next comptroller general must be “willing to call balls and strikes regardless of which party occupies the White House,” Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who will be on the panel to recommend candidates, said in a floor speech this month.
Dodaro leaves “a legacy of tremendous credibility, integrity and independence,” said Peters, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
From the Senate, the bipartisan panel will also include Majority Leader John Thune, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the president pro tempore.
In the House, the roster will include Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Oversight and Government Reform Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the Oversight panel’s top Democrat.
Jeffries said this month that he will be talking to his caucus about what kind of candidates to support.
Comer, meanwhile, used the GOP buzzphrase “waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement” to describe the kind of oversight work he wants the next GAO head to focus on.
“We want them to be aggressive, and we want them to work closely with us on identifying — not just problems, but solutions to the problem,” he said in an interview.
Comer hailed Dodaro in a tribute speech on the House floor this month as “deeply respected across the government and the oversight community for his integrity, candor and dedication.”
If history is any indication, it could take a while to seat a long-term replacement.
Dodaro served as acting director for more than two years before the Senate confirmed him to the post in 2010. There was also a two-year gap before his predecessor, David Walker, was confirmed.
Paul in a recent interview indicated there has been some discussion about launching the bipartisan selection commission, but “I don’t know much more than that.”
Congress
GOP, Democrats blast Vought for holding back cash: ‘You don’t have the authority to impound’
Senators from both parties chided the Trump administration Thursday for continuing to withhold funding Congress has approved, more than a year after the White House first froze billions of dollars for temporary “review.”
During White House budget director Russ Vought’s testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) scolded the OMB chief for not sending hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump administration is supposed to give states throughout the year to support community services aimed at reducing poverty.
“Congress has appropriated money, and you don’t have the authority to impound it,” Grassley said about the more than $810 million Congress appropriated this year for the Community Services Block Grant program.
That program helps states fund anti-poverty services such as transportation, education and nutrition assistance that serve more than 9 million people each year.
Grassley told Vought that lawmakers “are not getting any answers” as to why the Trump administration hasn’t sent states their quarterly funding from the program. “I want those quarterly allotments released,” Grassley said.
While Vought did not directly address Grassley’s comments, he said at a different point during the hearing that “we have not impounded a single thing.”
Other senators, including Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), lamented federal dollars being withheld for the fund that provides capital to small banks and credit unions in underserved areas. For months lawmakers from both parties have pushed back against Trump’s plans to eliminate that program, the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Congress
FISA extension vote delayed
House GOP leaders are pushing back the planned 3:15 p.m. procedural vote related to the bill extending a key spy power due to expire in four days.
Leaders are continuing to negotiate with hard-liners to come up with a deal that can pass the chamber.
No new time has been set for the rule vote.
Congress
Senate Republicans ‘syncing’ immigration funding plan with House GOP
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that GOP leaders want to make sure Republicans in both chambers are aligned as they move ahead with a party-line plan for immigration enforcement funding.
The South Dakota Republican told reporters he hopes the Senate will adopt a budget framework “by middle-to-the-end of next week,” the first step to unlocking the filibuster-skirting power to clear a package of up to $75 billion for ICE and Border Patrol.
Then ideally the House would adopt the Senate budget measure without changes, Thune said, allowing Republicans to move on to passage votes on a final bill to fund the immigration enforcement agencies.
“We’re communicating as much as we can, making sure that we’re syncing this up and doing it in the way that meets the requirements that both bodies have,” Thune said Thursday, following a meeting Wednesday with Speaker Mike Johnson for a routine check-in.
The attempt at GOP unity comes after House Republicans hotly rejected the Senate’s proposal last month to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, where funding lapsed more than two months ago. Now several House GOP lawmakers are also insisting Republicans fund all of the department through the party-line budget reconciliation process — not just the immigration agencies Democrats won’t support without new rules on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters Thursday afternoon that he hopes to release text of the budget framework in short order.
“We’re working on all that. Hopefully we’ll find consensus here soon. But I think we’re getting close,” he said.
“I hope we can get moving on it as early as next week,” Graham added.
Senate Republicans have started talking to their chamber’s parliamentarian as they seek to enact the party-line package — one piece of their two-part plan to end the DHS shutdown that began in mid-February.
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