Increasing transparency at the Federal Reserve is critical given the breadth of the Fed’s recent activities, but many of these activities involve private parties. Congress should consider that private firms will be disinclined to deal with the Fed if they lack adequate assurances that confidential information will remain confidential. Tasking the GAO to perform a comprehensive audit of the Fed would create new dangers, as the GAO, being a creature of Congress, could not provide the necessary assurances. It could also ultimately diminish the independence of the Fed and therefore degrade the Fed’s ability to fight inflation. A better approach is to rely on the Fed's Office of Inspector General to carry out the audit and to create a new entity in Congress to receive any confidential information associated with the audit.