He is putting the D in DOGE.
A California Democrat trolled firebrand GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene during her DOGE subcommittee hearing Wednesday by bringing a “d–k pic” — and unveiling a giant photo of Elon Musk.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) took the swipe at Greene (R-Ga.) after she showed off X-rated images of former first son Hunter Biden in compromising positions with several women in a House Oversight Committee hearing in July of 2023.
“In the last Congress, Chairwoman Greene literally showed a d–k pic in an Oversight Congressional hearing. So I thought I’d bring one as well,” Garcia said.
“Now this, of course, we know, is President Elon Musk,” he added, holding up a photo of the Tesla CEO who heads President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“He’s also the world’s richest man. He was the biggest political donor in the last election. He has billions of dollars in conflicts of interest. And we know that he’s leading a power grab also abided by and encouraged by Donald Trump.”
During the 2023 hearing, Greene whipped out the explicit photos of the little Biden’s, well, little Biden to raise concerns that the 53-year-old former first son flouted the Mann Act, which bars transportation of women across state lines “for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.”
The smutty pics of Biden were censored and she warned viewers that “parental discretion is advised” — but Democrats were still outraged by the move.
The Wednesday session was the DOGE subcommittee’s first major hearing and it was intended to be the opening salvo in Greene’s quest to craft legislative solutions to government inefficiencies.
The subcommittee, which is under the umbrella of the House Oversight Committee, complements Musk’s DOGE and the DOGE caucuses in both chambers of Congress.
“The American people are in debt slavery to everyone who owns our debt…it will destroy all of us,” Greene declared during her opening remarks.
“Let’s be brutally honest about how this massive debt came to be in the first place,” she continued.
“It came from Congress, and from elected presidential administrations. And I believe enslaving our nation in debt is one of the biggest betrayals against the American people by its own elected government.”
The hearing then quickly devolved into a partisan bickering match as Democrats harped on Musk’s outsized role in restricting the federal government and accused President Trump of breaking the law.
“People said they were upset about TikTok but I’m upset about the guy who runs Twitter, who for sure is doing nefarious things!,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas.) shouted.
“It is time for us to do our jobs and rein in this rogue actor known as Elon Musk.”
Oversight Committee Chairman Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) blasted Trump’s and Musk’s approach to government bloat as a “wrecking ball” and called for more deliberate reforms to curb improper payments and better enforce the tax code.
“A wrecking ball is not going to do it. And we’re not going to support that approach to waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government,” he said.
Republicans took turns firing back at Democrats while peppering them with questions about government waste.
“We are uncovering what could be the biggest money laundering scandal in American history,” Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) hit back at one point. “And the other side of the aisle could care less. … all they want to talk about [is] Elon Musk incessantly.
“I’d like to ask if Democrats really care about unlike the bureaucrats making decisions over our lives, where were they whenever their God Anthony Fauci was forcing vaccine and mask mandates on the American people?”
Democrats had brought in Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of Government Affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, as their main witness to counter the three experts Republicans had at the hearing.
Hedtler-Gaudette wore sunglasses during the hearing as he suffers from type-2 Usher syndrome which has made him blind.
During the hearing, he was critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the workforce and argued that there is a lot of nuance to improper payments made by the government.
“Sometimes improper payments are a function of bad record keeping sometimes they are a function of outdated technology systems,” he argued.
“Sometimes they come about through human error and sometimes they come about through negligence,” he continued.
“It just simply is not the case that improper payments are only a function of bad people doing bad things with bad intent.”
At one point, he cautioned that Trump’s decision to fire over a dozen inspectors general could harm efforts to root out government bloat.
“It completely undermines our ability to root out waste, fraud and abuse,” Whitson said.
But amid all the fighting and grandstanding during the heated two-hour hearing, several witnesses managed to get in a few key suggestions for lawmakers to evaluate.
Stewart Whitson, the senior director of Federal Affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, stressed that Trump and Musk have “only scratched the surface.”
“If this much fraud has been exposed in a few weeks, imagine what else is buried under layers of red tape and government excuses,” Whitson, a former FBI agent, said.
“Congress can support the president in carrying out his DOGE effort by making all executive branch employees at will, codifying the president’s authority to fire unproductive or insubordinate agency employees as needed,” he added.
Haywood Talcove, the CEO of Lexis Nexis Risk Solution, explained that the majority of government agencies are using outdated technology but are also hobbled by a cumbersome set of rules.
“They’re using very dated technology,” Talcove said.
“One of the things I think has to happen is the simplification of these processes and systems, and then just use the technology that we use every day in the private sector.”
Talcove also contended that the 1974 Privacy Act needed adjustments to ensure that the feds could better crack down on fraudulent payments.
Meanwhile, Dawn Royal, the director of the Council on Welfare Fraud, urged lawmakers to address fraud within social benefits programs.
“Making sure vulnerable citizens have access to these welfare programs should not mean that we simply turn a blind eye to integrity,” she warned.
“If we do not pursue the prevention, detection and prosecution of fraud, taxpayers become the victims.”
At the end of the hearing, Greene teased plans to develop a report on legislative solutions to government waste that she intends to release over the coming months.
Republican leaders have also been looking for ways to codify some of Musk’s and Trump’s actions into law as DOGE faces legal obstacles in the courts.
