WASHINGTON — The Division of Authorities Effectivity, run by President Donald Trump’s billionaire adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has gained entry to delicate Treasury knowledge together with Social Safety and Medicare buyer fee methods, based on two individuals conversant in the state of affairs.
The transfer by DOGE, a Trump administration process pressure assigned to seek out methods to fireplace federal employees, minimize packages and slash federal laws, means it may have huge leeway to entry necessary taxpayer knowledge, amongst different issues.
The best-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon, on Friday despatched a letter to Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressing concern that “officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs.”
“To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy,” Wyden mentioned.
“The Fiscal Service performs some of the most vital functions in government,” Lebryk mentioned in a letter to Treasury staff despatched out Friday. “Our work may be unknown to most of the public, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exceptionally important. I am grateful for having been able to work alongside some of the nation’s best and most talented operations staff.”
The letter didn’t point out a DOGE request to entry Treasury funds.
He didn’t present proof of this declare.
DOGE was initially headed by Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who collectively vowed to chop billions from the federal funds and usher in “mass headcount reductions across the federal bureaucracy.”
Ramaswamy has since left DOGE as he mulls a run for governor of Ohio.