BURNING ISSUES: WHY THE PENTAGON NEEDS AN AUDIT

May 17, 2016 by

 

An audit of the Defense Department’s finances must be the next president’s top priority to root out waste and “legalized corruption” in Pentagon procurement, says Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, in this Burning Issues video.

All federal agencies have been required since 1997 to go through an audit of their finances, and almost all of the largest federal agencies have gotten “clean” audits from the Government Accountability Office. The Pentagon is the biggest exception; it “just can’t do it and continues to be unable to do it,” Brian says. Defense Department officials have offered up the complexity and size of the Pentagon as excuses, but she says those responses don’t pass muster.

The only candidate who has spoken of auditing the Pentagon has been Bernie Sanders, who as a senator has co-sponsored a bill that would impose consequences on the Defense Department if it does not complete a satisfactory audit.

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