The Government Accountability Office plans to investigate any conflicts of interest issues with President Donald Trump’s transition process, as well as whether his transition staff followed any available guidelines on communicating with foreign governments, the government watchdog confirmed in an April 5 letter to Democratic lawmakers.
GAO, Congress’ investigative arm, was responding to a letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) that expressed concern about potential issues with Trump’s transition team.
“We are concerned about reports of ‘disarray’ within a ‘chaotic’ transition, and ask that your review address several concerns, including conflicts of interest related to business holdings of Mr. Trump and his family; potential violations of protocol and security precautions related to Mr. Trump’s communications with foreign leaders,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote in a November letter.
In the letter from the GAO, made public by Warren on Monday, the watchdog said it would “examine the 2017 presidential transition on the basis of your letter to the Comptroller General.” GAO said that it would look at what laws and ethics rules guide the transition process as well as how taxpayer and private money was spent by the Trump transition team.
The watchdog plans to look at how the transition team used the services available to them from the Office of Government Ethics on conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, as well as review how the team used services available to guide it on communications with foreign governments, according to the letter The GAO also will compare the Trump transition team’s use of resources to the practices of the Bush and Obama transition teams in 2001 and 2009.
In the letter, the GAO said that it would produce a report on its findings in June.
The office had already been looking into the costs and security related to Trump’s trips to his Florida resort Mar-A-Lago.
Read the full letter below:
