All federal agencies, including the Pentagon, are under the same requirement to undergo an independent financial audit since the early 1990s. Every other federal department has satisfied audit requirements since fiscal 2013. The Pentagon doesn't expect to pass an audit before 2027.

"Right now, the Pentagon can't even tell you where all of its buildings are located in the United States," the senior aide to Sanders said.

Another big issue is that the Pentagon hasn't been able to say how many contractors and subcontractors it employs. In 2018, it emerged that the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency did not have a paper trail for more than $800 million in construction projects.

The Pentagon audit is comprised of 27 individual audits conducted about 40 percent received clean opinions, one audit yielded a modified opinion and the remaining failed.

“I would say we failed to get an ‘A,’ ” McCord said. “I would not say that we flunked. The process is important for us to do, and it is making us get better. It is not making us get better as fast as we want.”

The worst player of all was the F-35 JSF program.

JSF “program property are not accounted for, managed, or recorded in APSR,” the audit said. “As a result, JSF property is not properly reflected in the DoD financial statements. Additionally, the Department [of Defense] relies on contractor records to value JSF property.”

Also included in these audits is the final reports on Afghanistan.

It’s been more than a year since the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from Kabul, and the Defense Department actually has no clear idea how much U.S.-funded military equipment fell into the Taliban’s hands in Afghanistan, according to a new report from a top government watchdog.

However, the failure started long before that.

“U.S. efforts to build and sustain Afghanistan’s governing institutions were a total, epic, predestined failure on par with the same efforts and outcome in the Vietnam war, and for the same reasons.”