Democrats Introduce Blind Government Oversight Affairs Director ‘Witness,’ Criticizing The Trump Admin And DOGE

OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
11:40 AM – Friday, February 14, 2025

A recent congressional hearing turned into a partisan verbal sparring match over Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after a blind government affairs director, who Democrats called up as their “witness,” gave his testimony while condemning the Trump administration’s DOGE organization.

Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, who is blind, was invited as an oversight witness by Democrat officials on the subcommittee on Wednesday.

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Hedtler-Gaudette took advantage of the session to directly criticize President Donald Trump’s initial actions “under the pretext of government efficiency,” while politicians primarily engaged in backbiting and other back-and-forth arguments pertaining to Musk.

Hedtler-Gaudette, who gradually lost vision due to a degenerative condition, argued in his opening remarks that the federal government already had enough staff of inspectors general tasked with identifying waste, fraud, and abuse in executive branch agencies — suggesting that DOGE was an unnecessary organization.

Meanwhile, the blind “witness,” who was hired during the Biden administration, was quickly blasted by conservative news hosts and MAGA influencers online, calling the session the “theater of the absurd,” while also noting that it makes sense he doesn’t “see any widespread abuse or waste from government spending” since he “is literally unable to see anything.”

The Trump administration and specifically DOGE continued to be ridiculed by the witness for their actions in firing a number of federal government heads, and he continued to criticize Musk’s organization due to the DOGE leader’s “inexperience and business-related conflicts of interest,” in Hedtler-Gaudette’s own words.

“It seems to me that if an administration were serious about wanting to root out waste, fraud and abuse, they would support and resource whistleblowers and inspectors general, they would not demonize them, and they would certainly not fire them en masse in an unlawful midnight purge,” Hedtler-Gaudette continued.

“These facts, as well as already-emergent legal challenges, make it unlikely that DOGE will provide the check against waste, fraud and abuse that its proponents hope for,” he continued.

At another point, Hedtler-Gaudette vaguely attempted to explain why he believes DOGE has been discovering government waste, fraud, and overspending.

“Sometimes improper payments are a function of bad record keeping, sometimes they are a function of outdated information technology systems, sometimes they come about through human error, sometimes they come about through negligence—there are a variety of reasons why improper payments happen,” Hedtler-Gaudette responded.

The government witness, who wore sunglasses throughout the hearing, frequently mentioned his blindness, including when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) pointed out that he had exceeded his permitted speaking time—since he couldn’t physically see the indicator.

“I can’t see the flashing light,” he reminded her.

Conservatives on social media continued to highlight Hedtler-Gaudette’s visual handicap—asserting that it was the reason that he hadn’t seen any widespread government fraud.

“The Democrats’ star speaker, Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of Government Affairs at the NGO ‘Project On Government Oversight’ (POGO), says he can’t see any widespread abuse or waste from government spending,” social media user Ian Miles Cheong said on X, along with a clip of the watchdog witness. “He is also blind, and is literally unable to see anything. The perfect witness.”

Additionally, Cheong pointed out that POGO has been financially supported by the Open Society Foundations, a nonprofit established by controversial left-wing billionaire George Soros — now being taken over by his son, Alex Soros.

“It is just simply not the case that improper payments are only a function of bad people doing bad things with bad intent,” Hedtler-Gaudette continued. “In fiscal year 2023 alone, inspectors general identified over $93 billion worth of potential savings to taxpayers,” Hedtler-Gaudette told the committee, continuing to argue that DOGE’s actions in firing government workers was a mistake.

Rep. Greene continued her remarks.

“In this subcommittee, we will fight the war on waste shoulder-to-shoulder with President Trump, Elon Musk and the DOGE team,” Greene declared.