The US Government Accountability Office known as GAO has concluded that the US Interior Department and National Park Service violated the AntiDeficiency Act and the purpose statute by using funds from US Congress to pay government workers to clean park bathrooms and maintain sites when the federal government was shuttered during the record-long shutdown.
Includes in the 16 page legal opinion, GAO stated "Interior disregarded not only the laws themselves but also the congressional prerogatives that underlie them. Instead of carrying out the law, Interior improperly imposed its own will.”
https://mccollum.house.gov/sites/mccollum.house.gov/files/documents/B-3…
U.S. Interior Department illegally used fees to keep national parks open during shutdown: GAO https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-interior-nationalparks-idUSKCN1V… …
GAO: Interior broke law in reopening parks during shutdown https://apnews.com/bd9d9f2f6a224265a4ceabfca1cd1e62
The GAO is a legislative branch agency that provides auditing, evaluation, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal government of the United States of America.
