Documents

This project covers a wide range of documents including Government Accountability Office (GAO) Reports and Inspector General Reports. These government oversight documents investigate misconduct, waste and programs.

The Inspector General data is fueled by an amazing volunteer effort that is part of the @unitedstates project. These volunteers built scrapers for all 65 US federal inspectors that publish reports online.

Check the inspectors-general repo to see the scrapers that are currently running or, learn how to contribute to the project. Feel free to open a ticket with any bugs or suggestions.

GAO reports come from the official GAO website.

Methods

All requests require a valid API key, and use the domain:

https://congress.api.sunlightfoundation.com

/documents/search

This provides full-text search for oversight documents. See the /congressional-documents method for congressional documents.

document_type “gao_report”, or “ig_report”.

document_type_name
This includes “GAO Reports” and “Inspector General Report”.

posted_at
Release date of the document.

published_on
Date the document was published.

title
Title of the document.

categories
Kind of document as assigned by the GAO.

url
Landing page for the document or link to the document if no landing page.

source_url
The document’s url.

Fields for gao_reports:

gao_id
Identifier for the document used in the web address on the GAO website.

report_number
GAO report number.

supplement_url
URL for supplemental information.

youtube_id
Youtube id if one is associated with the document.

links
Additional links related to the document.

description
Description of the document.

"gao_report": {
  "report_number": "GAO-13-126R",
  "description": "What GAO Found...",
  "gao_id": "649883",
  "supplement_url": null,
  "links": null,
  "youtube_id": null
}

Fields for ig_report

inspector_url
The url of the Inspector General that created the report. Inspector Generals are located withing their respective departments.

pdf
Metadata from the PDF. Including modification_date, creation_date, author and page_count.

published_on
Document’s publication date.

agency
Shortened name of the agency that produced the report.

agency_name
Full agency name.

type
General category that identifies the file as a report, audit, etc.

url
The report’s URL.

file_type
File type of the document, most reports are PDF.

title
The title of the report.

report_id
A unique identifier for the report.

year
Year of the report.

"ig_report": {
  "topic": "Other",
  "inspector_url": "http://www.doi.gov/oig/",
  "inspector": "interior",
  "pdf": {
    "modification_date": "2014-01-30",
    "creation_date": "2014-01-30",
    "author": "Khadiagala, Lynn",
    "page_count": 24
  },
  "published_on": "2014-01-30",
  "agency": "interior",
  "type": "report",
  "agency_name": "Department of the Interior",
  "url": "http://www.doi.gov/oig/reports/upload/OIGOrganizationalAssessment13Public.pdf",
  "file_type": "pdf",
  "title": "Office of Inspector General Organizational Assessment 2013",
  "report_id": "OIGOrganizationalAssessment13Public",
  "year": 2014
}

Other fields may appear for particular inspectors. These fields vary by inspector and are experimental.