GAO Report Reveals NLRB Deleted DOGE Access Records Before Federal Investigators Could Review Them

Since whistleblower Dan Berulis filed his complaint with Congress on April 14, 2025, federal scrutiny of DOGE's access to sensitive government systems has expanded across multiple agencies and legal fronts. The latest chapter involves a GAO audit.

The Deleted Records

The Government Accountability Office published a report in April 2026 covering DOGE activity at the National Labor Relations Board. Its official title stated that NLRB detailees did NOT access IT systems between April 16 and July 25, 2025, the window immediately following Berulis' complaint.

Buried in a footnote: in August 2025, before GAO investigators arrived to review the systems, the NLRB deleted the team member accounts associated with DOGE's access. According to Wired's reporting on the GAO document, those accounts were removed after the DOGE staffing agreement expired. Deleting the accounts eliminated the audit trail, leaving investigators unable to independently verify what NLRB staff told them about what had or hadn't been accessed.

The GAO report does NOT cover the period before Berulis filed his complaint. That earlier window is exactly what his whistleblower complaint was about.

"The report raises more questions than it resolves, such as who deleted the data," Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, told Wired. He added that in a different context, the footnote about the deletions would likely be the central theme of the entire report, not a footnote.

What Was at Stake at the NLRB

The NLRB is not a low-stakes target. It enforces federal labor law, investigates unfair labor practices, and handles collective bargaining disputes. Its systems contain the identities and testimony of whistleblowers, trade secrets submitted in labor negotiations, and a broad range of investigative materials.

According to Berulis' complaint, DOGE officials demanded "tenant owner" level accounts at the NLRB, a designation that gave them more system access than the agency's own chief information officer. That level of access would have allowed them to read, copy, and alter data across the agency's systems.

The NLRB's Office of the Inspector General opened its own investigation in May 2025, according to FedScoop. That investigation remains ongoing as of July 9, 2026.

Broader Pattern: Records and Legal Challenges

The NLRB situation is not isolated. In March 2025, U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander of the District of Maryland issued a temporary restraining order blocking DOGE from accessing Social Security Administration systems containing personally identifiable information. Judge Hollander also ordered DOGE team members, including Elon Musk and acting U.S. DOGE Service administrator Amy Gleason, to delete all non-anonymized personal data they obtained from SSA. Her 137-page opinion described DOGE's data collection at SSA as "essentially a fishing expedition" based on "little more than suspicion," according to FedScoop.

Separately, in April 2025, the watchdog group American Oversight filed a federal lawsuit against DOGE, Musk, Gleason, Steve Davis, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his capacity as acting archivist, alleging systematic violations of the Federal Records Act. The lawsuit targets DOGE's use of Signal and Google Docs to conduct official business, platforms that can auto-delete messages and lack the safeguards required to preserve public records under federal law. American Oversight's stated goal is declaratory and injunctive relief to stop further record destruction and force compliance with FOIA.

The Strongest Defense

The administration and its allies have a real argument here. DOGE's stated mission is eliminating fraud, waste, and bloat across the federal bureaucracy. Account deletions after a staffing agreement expires could reflect standard IT security hygiene rather than deliberate obstruction. Agencies routinely deprovision accounts when contractors or detailees leave. The GAO report itself concluded that DOGE staff did NOT access systems during the specific post-complaint window it examined. If the audit found no access violations in that period, defenders argue the broader alarm is disproportionate.

That defense has a structural problem. The pre-complaint period is exactly what the audit did not cover. And the deletion of historical access logs means it cannot be covered now, regardless of what actually happened.

What Remains Unresolved

The GAO did not identify who ordered the NLRB account deletions or whether that decision was made at the agency level or at DOGE's direction. The NLRB OIG investigation, now more than a year old, has not publicly released findings as of July 9, 2026. The American Oversight lawsuit over Signal and Google Docs use is active in federal court under docket number 25-1251.

The central factual question the GAO audit could not answer: what data did DOGE access at the NLRB before April 16, 2025? The records that might have answered it no longer exist.