House subcommittee hears GAO and DOD Inspector General: fraud risks persist in Defense procurement

Chairman James Comer’s Oversight and Reform subcommittee on government operations and the federal workforce devoted a hearing to fraud risk management at the Department of Defense, where witnesses from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Government Accountability Office told members that fraud in procurement remains an unresolved, high‑risk problem.

The hearing opened with the committee’s chair, who said the session would examine “the Department of Defense's fraud risk management efforts and how they work to combat fraud.” Ranking Member Mfume told the committee that DOD has failed seven straight financial audits and that even small error rates are consequential given the department’s massive budgets.

Why it matters: Members from both parties said fraud undermines military readiness and public trust. Witnesses described gaps in leadership commitment, data integration, and the operational use of analytics, and GAO said those gaps leave the department on GAO’s high‑risk list for financial management.

Deputy Inspector General Kelly P. Mayo, who leads criminal investigations at the DOD Office of Inspector General’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), told the panel that investigating procurement fraud “is a top priority for DCIS” and said DCIS’s work returns money to the government and leads to criminal convictions and contractor debarments. Mayo said DCIS had more than 1,800 open investigations and pointed to a recent six‑month period in which investigations resulted in more…