The White House has floated placing one of its top officials to serve as the head of the government’s most powerful watchdog, a move that could threaten the oversight of President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the executive branch.
Trump is considering nominating Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought’s deputy to serve as the nation’s comptroller general, the Government Accountability Office’s chief, for a 15-year term, according to four people familiar with the matter.
As OMB deputy director, Eric Ueland has presided over massive shakeups to the federal workforce and how agencies carry out their missions. Under Vought and Ueland, the administration has directed government spending and workforce changes that GAO has on several occasions deemed illegal and detrimental to the functioning of government.
If nominated and confirmed to lead the legislative branch’s watchdog agency, Ueland himself would get to decide whether to hold the administration accountable for work he previously was a part of.
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The White House has raised the idea of nominating Ueland to Senate Republicans, who have an outsized role in the GAO leadership selection process. By statute, a bipartisan congressional commission must send at least three candidates to the president to consider for nomination. The top GAO job has sat vacant since Gene Dodaro’s term expired at the end of 2025.
In addition to his role at OMB, Ueland is serving as the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics and the largely defunct U.S. Agency for International Development. Ueland did not respond to requests for comment, and OMB declined to comment.
Trump’s push to install Ueland comes at a perilous time for GAO and its relationship with Congress. GAO is facing pressure from Capitol Hill to exercise its power to sue the Trump administration over what the watchdog itself has labeled illegal budgetary gimmicks, like impounding billions of dollars in congressionally approved funds over the last two years.
A post-Watergate law prohibits an administration from withholding congressionally appropriated funds for policy reasons. The law gave GAO the authority to sue an administration that improperly refuses to spend money, and recent court precedent has suggested only GAO has the authority to bring such a challenge.
The GAO has faced unusual resistance from federal agencies in seeking the documents and interviews necessary to conduct its audits and reviews. GAO typically launches investigations at the request of members of Congress, though the auditors have encountered increased resistance from requests originating from Democrats.
“Our agency access issues are worse than ever,” one GAO employee told The Washington Sun.
GAO, as recently as Tuesday, said the Trump administration has unlawfully refused to disburse funds that Congress previously appropriated. OMB has rejected GAO’s findings and said the watchdog has no authority over it anyway.
Last week, GAO found the Trump administration’s “pocket rescissions” of $800 million also amounted to a violation of spending law. The move allowed OMB to withhold funds until they expired at the end of the fiscal year.
Some lawmakers and their staff have raised concerns about GAO so far declining to bring any legal challenges to the Trump administration’s budgetary machinations to current leadership — who are serving in acting capacities — according to GAO and congressional staffers.
They “have been vocally perturbed about the posture of our appropriations attorneys,” a GAO employee said, adding the feedback has come from both parties.
A Senate Republican aide confirmed there has been a push to get GAO to sue the administration, particularly after appropriators fended off an effort by the Trump administration to cut the watchdog agency’s budget in half.
“There’s been more and more interest in going about the legal route,” the Republican aide said. “Appropriators have protected GAO’s funding and are wondering why this isn’t happening.”
Placing a White House official into GAO leadership has the potential to end any threat of a lawsuit and to upend the watchdog agency altogether. Both the first and second Trump administrations have clashed with Congress’ watchdog, and Vought has suggested GAO should not exist. Vought issued guidance to agencies last year directing them to not be overly deferential to GAO.
The push to install an OMB appointee comes after a wide range of outside government groups, including the right-wing Americans for Prosperity and the libertarian R Street Institute, said Congress alone should have the authority to appoint a GAO chief and the president should have no role at all.
GAO has only sued over impoundments once — in 1975, one year after Congress passed the law deeming them illegal — but the matter was resolved before a judge could issue any ruling. Dave Walker, who led GAO from 1998 to 2008, sued the office of then-Vice President Dick Cheney over access to documents. A judge dismissed the case and Walker opted not to appeal, though he told The Washington Sun the George W. Bush administration worked well with his agency after that dustup.
Walker said he sought widespread buy-in before opting to launch his suit.
“I proactively reached out on both sides of the aisle and both ends of the Hill before I decided to sue and before I made my decision not to appeal,” Walker said.
Current GAO leadership — career staff serving in their roles temporarily — are unlikely to feel sufficiently empowered to sue the administration.
“When you’re acting, it’s not the same as being a confirmed comptroller general,” Walker said.
Frustration with GAO has also reached the ranks of its own workforce. Agency leadership demonstrated its cautious approach recently when it released new guidance to staff, reviewed by The Sun, on encountering agency resistance during investigations. The process involves setting an initial deadline, then a second if the first one is ignored and finally an internal elevation process if agencies continue to refuse to cooperate.
The watchdog’s counsel office will then strategize on a best path forward, though GAO supervisors are expected to engage further with agencies and, eventually, notify members of Congress who requested the report of the roadblocks. Top GAO leadership only gets involved 45 days after the second missed deadline, with guidance suggesting they will confer to figure out how to proceed.
Just getting to that point would take months, a GAO employee said, adding the analysts have little confidence in the agency’s lawyers.
“Without a smoking gun handed to them, they are relying on agencies to tattle on themselves,” the employee said. “Internally, we have effectively abandoned any hope of relying on them.”
The employee added that GAO leadership and its general counsel “are very wary about ever suing.”
“They don’t want to lose and have GAO’s authority diminished,” the employee said. “So instead, they just kinda don’t flex our authority, which has the same effect.”
Publicly, Democratic lawmakers have said Republicans should work with them to pass legislative language that would prohibit pocket rescissions and impoundments.
“If Republicans are ready to grow a spine and help us rein in Trump on pocket rescissions — great, it’s way past time,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said last week. “I am not holding my breath.”
The commission to select the next head of GAO has still not convened nine months after Dodaro’s departure, according to several sources familiar with the matter. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who in the current Senate makeup would serve as the de facto head of the commission under his role as chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, did not respond to a request for comment but previously said he planned to take the process seriously.
The panel must suggest at least three candidates to lead GAO, and the president can subsequently request they come up with more names. The law does not explicitly require the president to choose from the commission’s list, though the White House has done so.
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