The Investigative Journal’s Weekly Watchdog Roundup tracks the most consequential reports from government accountability offices, inspectors general, and independent oversight organizations across the political spectrum. This week, the federal accountability community produced findings on $100 billion in potential federal savings, $250 million in improperly spent prison funds, a $2 billion grant tied to a defeated political candidate, and the deepening erosion of inspector general independence. Each report is sourced to its original publication and dataset.
GAO Flags $100 Billion in Federal Duplication, Anti-Scam Fragmentation Across 13 Agencies
The Government Accountability Office released its 2026 Annual Report on Duplication, Overlap, and Fragmentation on May 12, identifying 97 new matters for congressional consideration and recommendations to agencies. GAO estimates that fully addressing the remaining 610 open matters could yield financial benefits of $100 billion or more — on top of the $774.3 billion in cost savings and revenue increases that congressional and agency action on prior reports has already generated. This is the 16th edition of an annual report mandated by Congress that systematically maps federal programs working at cross-purposes.
Among the new findings, GAO documented that at least 13 federal agencies independently run anti-scam programs without a coordinated government-wide strategy. A companion report, GAO-26-109023, found that nearly a year after GAO first recommended the FBI lead a coordinated effort, most agencies have either not implemented the recommendations or have disagreed with the conclusions. Forensic Audits Director Seto Bagdoyan told the Joint Economic Committee in March that fragmentation “risks diminishing efficiency and effectiveness” in countering a scam economy that records suggest costs Americans billions annually.
The report also surfaced fragmented healthcare sharing arrangements between the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, and an absence of coordination on workforce development programs between the Departments of Education and Labor. GAO is a nonpartisan legislative branch agency that audits federal programs at congressional request; its methodology is documented at gao.gov. The findings warrant further TIJ reporting on which of the 97 new recommendations the relevant agencies have explicitly accepted or rejected.
DOJ Inspector General: Bureau of Prisons Spent $250 Million in First Step Act Funds on Inmate Phone Calls
The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General released a report assessing the Bureau of Prisons’ use of $1.23 billion in First Step Act funding appropriated by Congress for fiscal years 2022 through 2024. The OIG found that the BOP “used more than $250 million in FSA funds to pay for inmate telephone calls without clear authority to do so” — a significant deviation from how Congress directed the money to be used for recidivism reduction programming.
The OIG also identified what records describe as “serious weaknesses” in the BOP’s financial controls over FSA spending. As of April 2026, $16.8 million of the BOP’s fiscal year 2022 appropriation remained unobligated, and the BOP anticipated that most of it would not be used to support FSA initiatives before it expired. Despite increased program availability on paper, the report found that “limited staff availability, lack of instructional space, and lockdowns limiting inmate movement” continued to prevent many FSA programs from reaching incarcerated participants as Congress intended.
The DOJ OIG is an independent oversight office within the Department of Justice, statutorily authorized under the Inspector General Act of 1978. The findings align with a parallel GAO report (GAO-26-107268) that flagged improvements needed in the system used to assess and mitigate incarcerated people’s recidivism risk. TIJ will follow whether BOP repays the $250 million from FY2025 or FY2026 appropriations and whether any individual official is referred for administrative action.
Judicial Watch Files FOIA Suits Over Crossfire Hurricane Records, $2 Billion EPA Grant
Judicial Watch, a conservative-aligned 501(c)(3) public interest law firm funded primarily through individual donations, filed two FOIA lawsuits in mid-May. On May 18, the organization sued the Department of Justice for fully unredacted records and previously withheld portions of former Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane probe. The complaint follows DOJ’s partial production of records that Judicial Watch’s filings indicate left unresolved questions about internal FBI communications during the original 2016–2017 investigation.
On May 15, Judicial Watch filed a separate FOIA lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency seeking records on the Biden administration’s $2 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant to the nonprofit Power Forward Communities. Public records connect the recipient to Rewiring America, an organization on whose board defeated 2018 and 2022 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams served. The litigation seeks the grant application, scoring documents, and communications between EPA officials and the awardee.
A separate Judicial Watch case continues to generate disclosures: court filings indicate the FBI located approximately 1.9 million pages of records responsive to an outstanding FOIA suit, reportedly stored in what filings describe as a “hidden room” at FBI headquarters. A court order required the FBI to disclose internal communications and directives about handling of these documents by a May 11 filing date. Judicial Watch describes its mission as promoting transparency and accountability through litigation; its funding and orientation are documented in its annual 990 filings. The merits of the FOIA suits remain undecided.
POGO Documents Yearlong Erosion of Inspector General Independence
The Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan oversight nonprofit founded in 1981 and funded primarily through foundation grants and individual donors, published an analysis documenting what its researchers describe as a sustained erosion of inspector general independence and whistleblower protections through the past year. The report tracks the January 2025 removal of at least 17 inspectors general — an action that subsequent federal court rulings determined did not comply with the 30-day congressional notice requirement under the Inspector General Act, though the affected positions were not reinstated.
POGO’s analysis also documents the temporary defunding in the fall of 2025 of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), which operates multiple whistleblower hotlines. POGO reports that whistleblowers were unable to access several CIGIE-administered intake channels for a period of months. An analysis of Office of Special Counsel data cited in the report indicates that OSC referred for investigation only 27 of 2,535 whistleblower disclosures received in fiscal year 2025 — a referral rate below 1.1 percent. POGO notes that OSC’s own internal referral target was reduced from 60 in FY2024 to a projected 20 in FY2026.
POGO is registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) and lists major funders including the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund on its disclosure page. The organization frames its work as nonpartisan, and its publications have repeatedly criticized administrations of both parties. TIJ will track which IG vacancies remain unfilled, the status of the CIGIE budget through the FY2026 continuing resolution, and any subsequent congressional response.
OpenTheBooks: Pentagon Closed FY2025 With $93.4 Billion September Spending Surge
OpenTheBooks, a Chicago-based 501(c)(3) transparency nonprofit founded by Adam Andrzejewski, published a spending analysis documenting that the Department of Defense spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in September 2025 — the final month of the fiscal year — with $50.1 billion of that obligated in the final five working days. The pattern, often described in federal budgeting literature as “use-it-or-lose-it” spending, occurs when agencies obligate unspent appropriations before they expire to avoid forfeiting future budget authority.
OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart testified before the DOGE Subcommittee in April on the federal real estate portfolio, citing the organization’s database of contract-level expenditure records. OpenTheBooks publishes its data through a public-facing search portal at openthebooks.com and routinely cross-references USAspending.gov data with Freedom of Information Act productions from individual agencies. The organization also published a February analysis of more than 270 million Medicaid payments from 2018 through 2024, drawing on data released by HHS, identifying patterns the authors describe as consistent with autism-related billing fraud.
OpenTheBooks describes itself as politically nonpartisan but is generally aligned with fiscal conservative principles; it is funded by individual donations and grants from the Adolph Coors Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation among others. The September spending pattern is well documented across administrations; the question warranting TIJ follow-up is which specific FY2025 contracts obligated in the final week deliver capability against the National Defense Strategy versus which were obligated principally to preserve appropriations.
ProPublica: Puerto Rico Prosecutors Were Told to Halt Drugs-for-Votes Probe
ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom funded primarily through major foundation grants and individual giving, published an investigation in May reporting that federal prosecutors in Puerto Rico had developed evidence that a prison gang known as Los Tiburones (The Sharks) was distributing drugs to incarcerated voters in exchange for their support of gubernatorial candidate Jenniffer González-Colón. According to ProPublica’s reporting, the lead prosecutor on the matter was directed in early 2025 not to advance the investigation further.
A follow-up reported that a group of federal lawmakers subsequently called on the DOJ Inspector General to investigate the decision to halt the probe. Records indicate the underlying allegations remain unproven and that no charges have been filed against the candidate; the news organization frames the reporting as documenting an investigative decision rather than as a finding of electoral fraud. ProPublica’s methodology page documents its sourcing standards and its policy of seeking comment from all named subjects before publication.
ProPublica is funded by the Sandler Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and a base of individual donors; its editorial orientation is generally consistent with center-left investigative journalism, though its accountability reporting has drawn pointed responses from administrations of both parties. The matter warrants close attention from TIJ pending the IG’s response to the congressional request.
CRS Reports Detail Operation Epic Fury Aircraft Losses, China Proliferation Concerns
The Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan policy research arm of the Library of Congress, published two notable reports in late May. A May 13 report on U.S. aircraft combat losses in Operation Epic Fury enumerated 42 airframes damaged or destroyed, including 24 MQ-9 Reapers, 7 KC-135 Stratotankers, 4 F-15E Strike Eagles, 2 MC-130J Commando IIs, and individual incidents involving an E-3 Sentry and an F-35A Lightning II. The report contextualizes loss rates against historical comparisons and flags procurement implications for the FY2027 budget cycle.
A separate May 19 CRS report on China’s nuclear and missile proliferation found that “Chinese entities have continued to engage in proliferation, according to the U.S. government, which also has repeatedly expressed concerns with regard to weaknesses in China’s export control system.” The report draws on State Department designations, Treasury sanctions actions, and Department of Commerce Entity List additions made over the prior 12 months. A third report on U.S. extended deterrence assesses the credibility of U.S. nuclear assurances to more than 30 treaty allies and partners.
CRS reports are produced for members of Congress and committees and are not initially public, though many are subsequently disclosed through EveryCRSReport.com and similar repositories. The reports do not advocate policy positions; they provide options analysis. The combat-loss data alone warrants follow-up reporting on the FY2027 MQ-9 procurement profile and on programmed force-protection upgrades to the KC-135 fleet.
Findings That Warrant Deeper TIJ Investigation
Several threads from this week’s roundup point toward sustained reporting projects rather than single-story coverage. The DOJ OIG finding that $250 million in First Step Act funds were redirected to inmate telephone services raises a procurement-chain question — which contractors received that money, on what contract vehicles, and whether any have political or familial connections to BOP leadership. Public records on USAspending.gov and BOP contract awards would support that inquiry. Separately, the OpenTheBooks September spending data invites scrutiny of which specific large-dollar obligations occurred in the final 96 hours of FY2025 and whether any were modified or de-obligated after the fiscal year closed.
The POGO whistleblower analysis and the Judicial Watch FBI records litigation also intersect: both touch on the question of how federal agencies handle internal records that document potential wrongdoing. A TIJ follow-up could examine the records-retention policies governing the disclosed “hidden room” at FBI headquarters and the parallel question of whether CIGIE’s intake systems have been fully restored. Finally, the ProPublica Puerto Rico reporting will require updates as the IG either accepts or declines the congressional referral; pending matters should be treated as allegations rather than findings until any official disposition.
Every claim in this roundup is sourced to a public document or watchdog report linked above. Where pending litigation or unresolved investigations are described, the status is noted. Watchdog organizations cited above represent a range of political orientations, and their funders are disclosed in their respective annual filings.