Federal Investigators Say Certain DOGE Records Were Deleted

On April 14, 2025, a national IT staffer filed a whistleblower ailment with Congress alleging that members of the alleged Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had accessed and perchance exfiltrated delicate accusation from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Just days aft filing the complaint, Dan Berulis, the whistleblower, recovered the brakes connected his car had been chopped aft getting into a insignificant mishap adjacent his home. The complaint, which went nationalist successful an NPR communicative the time aft it was filed, caused an outcry, with members of Congress calling for an investigation. The pursuing month, successful May 2025, FedScoop reported that the NLRB’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) opened an investigation. It remains ongoing.

In April 2026, though, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—a national bureau wrong the legislative subdivision that performs audits and investigations for Congress— published its ain study astir DOGE’s entree to the NLRB’s systems, titled “National Labor Relations Board Detailees Did Not Access IT Systems Between April 16 and July 25, 2025.” The study conspicuously lone covers the clip play instantly pursuing Berulis’ complaint, and does not code immoderate DOGE enactment earlier that point.

But nested successful the footnotes of the study is different revelation: In August 2025, soon aft DOGE members near the NLRB but earlier the GAO’s investigators “requested to observe the systems,” the bureau “deleted the squad subordinate accounts for strategy entree aft the statement to item DOGE squad unit had expired.” Basically, this means that the integer records of what information and systems DOGE members accessed and erstwhile had been eliminated, leaving the GAO nary mode to corroborate what NLRB unit told their investigators.

“I deliberation you could ideate different concern wherever the footnote is the cardinal taxable of the report,” says Don Moynihan, a prof of nationalist argumentation astatine the University of Michigan. “The study raises much questions than it resolves, specified arsenic who deleted the data.”

The NLRB enforces laws concerning unions and corporate bargaining, and investigates unfair labour practices. This gives it entree to the identities of whistleblowers arsenic good arsenic their testimony; accusation astir commercialized secrets and different proprietary information that mightiness beryllium important successful issues related to negotiations betwixt employers and employees; and a wide assortment of investigative materials.

According to Berulis’ whistleblower complaint, “DOGE officials required the highest level of entree and unrestricted entree to interior systems. They were to beryllium fixed what are referred to arsenic ‘tenant owner’ level accounts, with fundamentally unrestricted support to read, copy, and change data”—a level of entree beyond that of the agency’s main accusation officer.

In the report, GAO officials enactment that they “interviewed NLRB unit regarding what level of entree they provided for each strategy to the DOGE team,” but were incapable to corroborate whether what they were told was existent due to the fact that the DOGE accounts and associated accusation had already been deleted from the NLRB’s systems. It’s besides not wide precisely who from DOGE had access: Justin Fox, Nate Cavanaugh, and Jordan Wick were each astatine 1 constituent astatine the NLRB, but nary circumstantial DOGE members are named successful the study nor successful Berulis’ archetypal whistleblower complaint.

The NLRB did not respond to a petition for comment; neither did Fox, Cavanaugh, oregon Wick.

Tesla and SpaceX, some companies owned by Elon Musk, who besides led DOGE, person been the taxable of NLRB investigations. Earlier this year, the NLRB dropped the lawsuit against SpaceX, saying that the bureau didn’t person jurisdiction implicit the company.

In an April connection announcing an probe into the case’s dismissal, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal wrote: “Given Musk’s bonzer fiscal enactment for President Trump successful the 2024 election, his important power successful the Trump Administration and involvement successful the NLRB’s enactment arsenic caput of [DOGE] … we question answers to find if the determination to driblet the lawsuit whitethorn person been based connected governmental considerations alternatively than the facts astatine hand.”