The Department of War Inspector General has substantiated harassment, favoritism and misuse-of-office findings against the Navy's top internal auditor in Report No. DOWIG-2026-104, a 31-witness investigation that concludes Ms. Donjette L. Gilmore, Auditor General of the Navy, retaliated against the subordinate who beat her for the job she now holds.
Background
Gilmore has led the Naval Audit Service, known as NAVAUDSVC, since 2022. The agency is the Navy's internal audit arm and also supports the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Naval Inspector General and the Acquisition Integrity Office — giving its top official access to sensitive audit findings across the service, including work that touches acquisition programs and contractor performance. As a Senior Executive Service member, Gilmore sits atop the Navy's civilian audit workforce, a position with authority over which programs get scheduled for review and how findings get reported up the chain.
The Department of War Office of Inspector General opened its investigation after receiving six separate complaints filed between May 2023 and June 2024, a span covering roughly the first half of Gilmore's tenure as Auditor General to date. Investigators interviewed Gilmore along with 31 witnesses and reviewed nearly 4 million pages of official and personal emails, Microsoft Teams logs and other documents to build the case, issuing their report — DOWIG-2026-104 — on July 30, 2026. The scale of the document review, spanning both government and personal accounts, points to an investigation that reconstructed years of internal communications rather than relying solely on the six original complaints.
Key Details
The OIG substantiated violations in three areas. First, investigators found Gilmore engaged in a sustained pattern of harassing subordinates, including belittling comments about their weight, smell and appearance. Second, the report found Gilmore created an appearance of favoritism across 17 GS-15 hiring actions between 2018 and 2024. Nine of those 17 hires were non-competitive, and African American women filled 13 of the 17 positions, with several selectees having prior personal ties to Gilmore.
The most serious finding concerns misuse of position. According to the report, after Gilmore lost the 2018 competition for Auditor General to a subordinate, Ronnie Booth — whom she had just rated "Outstanding" on a performance evaluation — she pressured or coerced another subordinate into filing a sexual harassment complaint against Booth. Investigators found she compiled lists naming 29 women tied to harassment allegations, directed the subordinate to share information with a Washington Post reporter, and had that subordinate accompany her to lobby congressional offices with complaints about Booth — the same congressional complaints that also included a request from Gilmore for support for her own selection as Auditor General.
The OIG also found Gilmore used government equipment and her official email account to support an outside nonprofit organization on whose board she serves, and directed subordinates to perform non-official work related to her personal podcast interview, her own EEO complaint and an appeal of her performance evaluation.
Gilmore disputed the findings in a formal written response to investigators. The OIG reexamined the evidence in light of her rebuttal and did not change its conclusions. The report also notes that Gilmore told investigators she could not recall the PIN codes for her government-issued phones, and that one of those phones was found to be missing its SIM card — details the report includes alongside its substantive findings without drawing further conclusions from them.
Taken together, the three substantiated findings describe a pattern that runs from Gilmore's day-to-day treatment of staff, through how she filled senior positions under her authority, to the specific campaign the OIG says she waged against the man who was selected for the Auditor General job ahead of her in 2018. The report frames the harassment complaint Gilmore is alleged to have engineered against Booth, the outside media contact, and the congressional lobbying as connected pieces of an effort to reverse that 2018 selection decision after the fact.
What It Means for Contractors
NAVAUDSVC audits touch acquisition programs, contract performance and financial management across the Navy, and its findings can shape which contractors face heightened scrutiny or corrective-action demands. A leadership scandal at the agency does not erase that authority, but it puts a spotlight on how audit findings involving Gilmore's tenure were generated and vetted, and whether personnel decisions inside the office were driven by merit or by the loyalty dynamics the OIG describes. Contractors currently under NAVAUDSVC review, or expecting one, should expect continued audit activity — the report addresses personnel conduct, not the agency's audit methodology or its findings on contract performance — but should also watch for any Navy or DoW response affecting NAVAUDSVC's leadership structure, since a change at the top could shift audit priorities or staffing on active engagements.
The case is also a reminder for contractor compliance officers that EEO and harassment complaint channels inside a federal audit agency are themselves subject to IG scrutiny. The report describes a complaint process allegedly manipulated for a personal grievance against a rival, a dynamic that can surface in any organization, government or contractor, where complaint intake and complaint subject-matter overlap with the reporting chain. Firms working closely with NAVAUDSVC on audit responses or corrective action plans should track whether the substantiated findings trigger command action, since a change in leadership or in delegated signature authority could affect pending audit closeouts.
Finally, the report's emphasis on nearly 4 million pages of official and personal communications underscores how thoroughly DoW OIG investigators can reconstruct hiring patterns, procurement-adjacent decisions and internal communications when a complaint is filed. Contractors that interact with NAVAUDSVC staff on audits, whether providing documentation or responding to findings, should assume that email and messaging records tied to those interactions are discoverable in any future IG review, and should document communications with the same rigor they would apply to a contracting officer's file.
The report also illustrates how far a Department of War Inspector General investigation into a single senior official can reach once it starts. What began as six complaints about one executive's conduct expanded into a review of hiring patterns going back to 2018 and a reconstruction of contacts with a reporter and congressional offices. Contractors that support audit agencies, or that have their own SES-level points of contact inside the Navy, should treat this as a data point on how much documentation an IG can compel and reconstruct once an investigation is opened, and should keep their own records accordingly.
