Senate Judiciary Republicans are seeking accountability for taxpayers who footed the bill for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives under former President Joe Biden.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas and Ashley Moody of Florida wrote to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Thursday to ask the nonpartisan watchdog to perform an audit of the DOJ’s DEI practices under the Biden-Harris administration. The senators asked that GAO investigate how much time and money were spent executing the Biden administration’s executive orders cementing DEI initiatives across the federal government, according to the letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The Biden-Harris EO [Executive Order] was a divisive bureaucratic burden on the Executive Branch,” the GOP senators wrote to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro. “The taxpayer deserves to know how much time and money the Biden-Harris DOJ spent on these efforts.”
“Specifically, the taxpayer has a right to know how many DOJ employees were hired to work on DEIA [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility] programs or initiatives and how much money the DOJ spent on these functions, including salaries, fringe benefits, rent for office space, and supplies for employees,” the senators said.
Senate Republicans’ request for an audit of the Biden administration’s DEI initiatives comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to roll back Biden’s DEI practices, which Trump has referred to as “illegal and immoral discrimination.”
“[N]early every Federal agency and entity [under Biden] submitted ‘Equity Action Plans’ to detail the ways that they have furthered DEIs [sic] infiltration of the Federal Government,” Trump wrote in his executive order banning government DEI initiatives on Jan. 20. “The public release of these plans demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination. That ends today. Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans are specifically requesting that the GAO probe the Biden administration’s EO 14035 titled, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce,” issued in June 2021.
“As the Nation’s largest employer, the Federal Government must be a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, where all employees are treated with dignity and respect,” Biden wrote.
The EO led to the creation of new DEI offices in the federal government and new federal spending on DEI initiatives. The GOP senators cited a Parents Defending Education analysis that found that the Biden-Harris DOJ alone spent more than $100 million on promoting DEI initiatives in K-12 school districts.
The EO also required federal agencies to create individual “strategic plans” to advance DEI priorities. “GAO should review the time and money the DOJ dedicated to these efforts,” the senators wrote.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has worked to undo the Biden DOJ’s DEI practices and carry out Trump’s EO prohibiting certain DEI practices in the private sector and in educational bodies that receive federal funds.
The DOJ announced an investigation into four California universities Friday for allegedly using DEI practices in their admission policies.
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