Title: GAO Is Nonpartisan. Here's How We Do It. 

Related work: GAO.gov 

Description: On this special episode of the podcast, we sit down with GAO's Chief Quality Officer Tim Bowling to discuss how GAO protects our fact-based, nonpartisan reputation by ensuring our work is free from partisanship and bias.  

Released: August 2025

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[Tim Bowling:] We have an important role to play in the government and we want to ensure that we're providing the best possible service now, and in the future.

[Holly Hobbs:] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report. Your source for fact-based, nonpartisan news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. We've got another special episode of the Watchdog Report today. While most episodes focus on our new reports for Congress, we also sometimes talk about GAO itself—our mission and how we do what we do. Today's episode focuses on a very important aspect of our work. We'll look at how GAO protects its work from bias and partisanship. Here to tell us more is GAO's Chief Quality Officer Tim Bowling. Thanks for joining us. 

[Tim Bowling:] Thank you. Holly. It's a pleasure to be here. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Tim, employees at GAO are often told our agency is unique—that we're able to be nonpartisan because of that uniqueness, because of our independence. What does that mean? 

[Tim Bowling:] Well, GAO was created long ago to become an independent organization that did not support any particular political or other bias or point of view. The fact that we are who we are is virtually unique in the federal government. The federal government has a number of places you could go if you want information from a particular institution. They can do analysis. They can tell you their perspectives. But almost all of them have a particular point of view that they are responding to. Whereas GAO does not. We pride ourselves on being independent and nonpolitical, nonpartisan, and we are, as I said, virtually unique across the federal government in that aspect. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So obviously, we work for Congress. They request our efforts or they mandate it in law? But Congress isn't nonpartisan. So how do we keep that influence from influencing our work? 

[Tim Bowling:] Well, we have produced congressional protocols which outline our relationship with Congress, and all of Congress has a copy of that. Each one. And they know that one of the most important aspects is that when they request us to do an engagement and we accept it, at that point, they can talk to us about what we're doing if they want to. What they can't do is say, oh, we didn't think you would find that. We don't want you to go any further, close down this engagement. We do not do that. If we have started engagement and have begun developing findings, we will complete it and we will issue it publicly. They can tell us what to look at, but not what to find.

[Holly Hobbs:] Sometimes we get asked to look at programs or topics that may be championed by one party or disparaged by the other, right?  How do we navigate that?

[Tim Bowling:] One of the strengths of our process is it insulates us to a fair degree from political considerations that some members of Congress might bring, in that they would say, 'You are doing work on this subject, that is a subject is highly political, and that could be seen as benefiting the other party.' We are protected from that, very much so, by our processes and policies that ensure that we do not accept any request from Congress that is not provided in a way that it can be accomplished through a nonpartisan and independent review. 

That is absolutely essential. When we get a request from Congress, we would go up and talk to them about that request and talk about how we could do it. Talk about what we could do and what we couldn't do. If it's a request that asks us, 'Why is this program so badly run?' we would say that is not a request we can answer because it assumes a conclusion. Instead, we would look at how this program is run and is it run according to appropriate standards and quality considerations. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So we've been talking about how we keep external influence from impacting GAO's work. But the work's done by human beings, and they have opinions. How do we keep those opinions out of our work so that it remains fact-based?  

[Tim Bowling:] Okay, very good question. The reality is that we have a culture here at GAO that is unique, I think, across government in the way in which its nonpartisan aspect, nonpolitical aspect is not only encouraged but required. I can say that there are people I've worked with for 35 years and if you ask me, 'Do they vote Democrat or Republican,' I couldn't tell you. 

In addition, we have policies that require all of us at GAO to put in a financial disclosure statement once a year that says where all of our finances are located. And they are reviewed carefully by our General Counsel's Office to ensure that there's no possibility that a person would be assigned to a particular engagement that could be influenced in some way by his financial holdings, or investments, or stocks, or bonds, or whatever. So we are very careful about that. 

In addition, every 2 weeks we account for all the time we spend during that 2-week period and charge particular time codes for it. And that is always looked at closely. But the person filling it out has to also say, 'I attest that I have no impairments to my independence in any of the work that I'm charging time to during this 2-week period.'

[Holly Hobbs:] Some of what we just discussed is self-reporting, right? You're disclosing your own finances. You're saying you're independent and don't have bias. But who checks the work itself to make sure its fact-based and free from bias? 

[Tim Bowling:] It's an excellent question as well, because it's so important to who we are and our very survival as an agency. We have created the Audit Policy and Quality Assurance. And that office is an independent office within GAO that reports directly to the Comptroller General and is not under the influence in any way with the rest of GAO. And what we do is ensure that each of the engagements that we do results in a product that is in keeping with our core values, our professional standards, that is correct, that is unbiased, fair, balanced and accurate. And we look at every report and every engagement that GAO does. 

We are aware that if we don't ensure that every product is of the quality that meets our standards, we could find ourselves in a lot of difficulty because it only takes one mistake before people start to wonder, 'Well, we've always thought they're right about everything. Maybe they're not always right.' Well, fortunately, in my 24 years as chief quality officer, we have not had to withdraw any report. 

[Holly Hobbs:] One of the things I remember, from being an analyst myself, is that at the end of the engagement or near the end of the engagement, there's a fairly tedious process of going through every report and checking the facts. Can you tell us a little bit about why that process exists and what it's meant to look for? 

[Tim Bowling:] Yes, that is a process called referencing, wherein the people who do the work, they write up a summary of everything they did—details of all the information they gathered, what it means, where they got it, what it says. And they use that as the foundation for what goes into the report. So every report—every statement, in every report, in fact—is directly tied to one of those reference comments. For example, if we said that this program was created by a certain act, we would reference that back to the work papers to make sure we got the name of the law correct. And we do that for every single fact in every report. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Tim, you've walked us through several layers of review and checks to ensure GAO's work is, in fact, fact-based, and nonpartisan. But we're still talking about GAO employees reviewing GAO employees' work. What's the external check? Who is watching the watchdog? 

[Tim Bowling:] Well, we have our own IG, Inspector General. And they actually do have a program every year of different aspects of our activities and our policies and practices that they look at, they examine to determine that we're living up to our standards and that we're doing what we should be doing. That's a useful thing, and it is very independent. We don't have any sway over what they choose to do or what they find. That's helpful. 

In addition, we have something we call peer review, which allows us to contract with other organizations. We call them supreme audit institutions, but they are organizations that are commensurate with GAO, the same type of organization at countries around the world. They will take a sample of our work. And they will then review that sample in light of our own policies and they will say, did those policies in fact get fulfilled in that product? And did we do what we say we're doing? Is it accurate? At the end of it—and it's a quite a lengthy process, it's quite an investment—but in the end, they're saying that yes, we do live up to our standards and policies. We always have. They have never had a single finding in all the years we've been doing this of inaccuracy or a finding that they said that is not supportable. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So GAO is obviously very protective of its reputation. 

[Tim Bowling:] It's a very important part of it. If we ever get the reputation of not producing products that are fair, balanced and accurate, Congress would stop listening to us, would stop requesting products from us. In the sense that would be the end of GAO as we know it because we exist to provide that information to Congress so that it can use it in its decision making, deliberation processes. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So last question, what would you want Congress or the American public to know about the quality of work we're doing here? 

[Tim Bowling:] We would want people to know that they can unreservedly rely on our products for being accurate, and for being unbiased and fair and balanced. That they can use our products for decision making, very important decision making in the Congress and for other decisions by the American people and the executive branch. That, in fact, those decisions are based on our reliability in all of our work. And that we cherish and would jealously guard.

[Holly Hobbs:] That was Tim Bowling talking about how GAO guards its work against partisanship and bias. Thanks for your time, Tim. 

[Tim Bowling:] Thank you very much, Holly.

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. And make sure to leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.