Congress’s own watchdog just released a report with findings that deserve far more attention than they have received.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed whether DOGE team members accessed National Labor Relations Board systems during the period they were formally assigned there. The answer, according to auditors who reviewed the actual system logs: no evidence they ever did.
In April 2025, NPR published a widely circulated report built around a single whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, an NLRB IT staffer. Berulis claimed DOGE operatives had broken into internal systems, disabled security monitoring tools, and potentially moved sensitive labor data out the door. The story landed hard. Democrats demanded investigations. Congressional letters flew. Other outlets picked it up. The narrative took hold.
None of it appears to have happened during the period auditors were able to verify.
Two DOGE staffers were formally detailed to the NLRB starting April 16, 2025, with agreements running through July 25, 2025. They requested access to seven internal HR systems covering personnel records, payroll, and hiring databases. Accounts were created for them on April 24.
And then: nothing.
“GAO found no evidence that DOGE team staff accessed any of these systems between April 16, 2025, and July 25, 2025.”
The staffers never picked up their government-issued laptops. Never activated their credentials. Never logged in. Not once. Auditors pulled the sign-in logs and found zero activity across the entire period. When the agreements expired, the accounts were quietly disabled.
No drama. No breach. No story.
The GAO report does not explain why the staffers never followed through.
NPR’s reporting, meanwhile, centered primarily on the account of one employee: claims that DOGE engineers had been deep inside those systems, pulling data and covering their tracks, triggering panic among IT staff. No system-level verification, like the access logs GAO later reviewed, accompanied the story at publication. Readers had no way of knowing that at the time. They still might not, unless they’ve seen this report.
The audit was limited to April 16 through July 25, 2025, the window covered by the formal detailee agreements, and did not examine alleged activity prior to that period in order to avoid interfering with an ongoing Inspector General investigation. Berulis claimed the relevant activity happened in March 2025, weeks before those agreements were even signed. That earlier window remains under review by the Inspector General, and if evidence of wrongdoing surfaces there, it will matter. But the period that has been fully audited, the one covered by the formal agreements, and the one GAO had authority to examine, came back clean.
Read More: Federal Employment at Lowest Point Since LBJ Era As DOGE Reductions Take Hold
The NLRB itself said at the time it found no evidence of a system breach. That statement drew far less attention than the original allegations. The GAO’s independent review, backed by actual system logs, is unambiguous on the period it examined: no logins, no system use, no verified access.
NPR’s story ran everywhere. It prompted congressional inquiries and sustained weeks of coverage built on the premise that DOGE had breached federal systems and walked off with sensitive data.
The GAO report has received far less attention.
A dramatic allegation travels faster than the audit that follows it. Readers who followed the original story are owed an update, and the evidence is now public.
Draw your own conclusions.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy RedState’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
