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ron wyden
Top Democrat Demands Answers on Treasury 'Cover-Up' of Musk Team's Access to Key System
"If Wired's reporting is accurate, the Treasury Department deliberately misled or outright lied to Congress to cover up DOGE's handling of the nation's most sensitive financial system," wrote Sen. Ron Wyden.
Feb 07, 2025
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden on Friday demanded answers from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent after reporting contradicted the department's narrative about the level of payment system access granted to lieutenants of unelected billionaire Elon Musk.
In a letter to Bessent, Wyden (D-Ore.) pointed to a Thursday Wiredstory revealing that a Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) operative had "write access" to critical Treasury payment systems, despite the Treasury Department and Trump White House's insistence to the contrary.
According to Wired, 25-year-old Marko Elez—who resigned from his position Thursday after The Wall Street Journal inquired into his racist social media posts—"was granted privileges including the ability to not just read but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the U.S. government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS)."
"Reporting from Talking Points Memo confirmed that Treasury employees were concerned that Elez had already made 'extensive changes' to code within the Treasury system," Wired added. "The payments processed by BFS include federal tax returns, Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income benefits, and veterans' pay."
"These mission-critical systems are not to be manipulated or subject to the whims of unelected billionaires or software engineers with fantasies of destroying the federal government from within."
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote Friday that "if Wired's reporting is accurate, the Treasury Department deliberately misled or outright lied to Congress to cover up DOGE's handling of the nation's most sensitive financial system."
"Treasury's refusal to provide straight answers about DOGE's actions, as well as its refusal to provide a briefing requested by several Senate committees, only heightens my suspicions," Wyden added. "It now appears Mr. Elez has resigned his position, not due to the flimsy and transparent cover-up of his ability to alter Treasury Department payment system code, but due to his links to a social media account that advocated racism and eugenics."
In a February 4 letter to Wyden, the Treasury Department claimed that DOGE staffers would "have read-only access to the coded data of the Fiscal Service's payment systems in order to continue this operational efficiency assessment."
Wyden demanded Friday that the Treasury Department identify any officials other than Elez who were given "read-write" access to the Treasury payment system. The senator also specifically demanded to know whether Musk himself has been granted access to the system's data.
"Reports make clear that Musk and his DOGE functionaries have sought access to the payments system not for an audit, but instead to manipulate the system in order to enact a political agenda," Wyden wrote. "The Treasury Department's payment systems facilitate nearly 90% of all federal payments and more than $6 trillion annually. These mission-critical systems are not to be manipulated or subject to the whims of unelected billionaires or software engineers with fantasies of destroying the federal government from within."
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Musk's DOGE Blitzkrieg Should Infuriate the Nation
The billionaire oligarch and his henchmen are wreaking havoc in government offices with sensitive personal data of all U.S. citizens. If left unchecked, this is just the beginning of their assault on our democratic system.
Feb 03, 2025
In raids reminiscent of the “January 6” Proud Boys attack on the U.S. Capitol four years ago, unelected, unvetted, and without federal government security clearance, the Trump-anointed head of the yet unapproved Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) Elon Musk and his henchmen are wreaking havoc in government offices with sensitive personal data of all U.S. citizens.
Last week, Musk’s blitzkrieg team gained access to sensitive Treasury data including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment system. Access to the system is closely held because it includes sensitive personal information about the millions of U.S. citizens who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds, and other payments from the federal government.
The responsibility for ensuring payments are accurate is on individual agencies, not the relatively small staff of civil servants at the Treasury Department’s Office of Fiscal Services, which is responsible for making more than one billion payments per year. The office disbursed more than $5 trillion in fiscal year 2023.
Career Department of Treasury Senior Official Forced Out of Job of Ensuring Massive Data Security
After receiving the demand from Musk and his DOGE operatives for access to the extremely sensitive data the Department of Treasury’s on Friday acting Deputy Secretary David Lebryk resigned from his position at Treasury after more than 30 years of service.
The previous weekend, Lebryk had been pushed by Tom Krause—the chief executive of a Silicon Valley company, Cloud Software Group and a member of Musk’s blitzkrieg team—for entry into the federal payments system. Lebryk refused and then was subsequently put on administrative leave and then forced to resign.
In response to Lebryk’s resignation, Musk responded on February 1 to a post on his social media platform X: “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.”
In Musk and Trump styles, Musk provided NO evidence for his allegation.
Senator Ron Wyden Pushes Back on Musk’s Politically Motivated Access to Highly Sensitive Financial Programs and Data
Also on Friday, after hearing about the DOGE raid on the Office of Financial Services, Senator Ron Wyden, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outraged 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.”
Sen. Wyden pushed back against DOGE operatives, saying “I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”
Writing on social media on Saturday, Wyden said that “sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system, Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it."
In a four-page letter dated January 31, 2025, Wyden demanded answers from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent following a report that personnel affiliated with Musk sought access to the highly sensitive Treasury Department payment system. That system, which is maintained by non-political staff, disperses trillions of dollars each year, such as Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax credits for individuals and businesses, grants and payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk-owned companies.
Senator Wyden wrote to Trump’s new Secretary of the Treasury:
“I write regarding disturbing reports that officials associated with Elon Musk and the so called U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) attempted to gain access to systems that control payments to millions of American citizens, including Social Security, Medicare and tax refunds. A confrontation over access apparently resulted in the abrupt resignation of David Lebryk, a career non-partisan Treasury official who recently had been named acting Secretary of the Treasury by President Trump.
These reports are particularly concerning given incidents earlier this week in which Medicaid portals in all 50 states were shut down along with other crucial payment programs, following the Trump Administration illegally issuing an order to freeze all grant and loan payments.
As you are aware, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion in annual payments to households, businesses and other entities nationwide. These payment systems process more than a billion payments annually and are responsible for the distribution of Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax refunds, payments to federal employees and contractors, including competitors of Musk-owned companies, and thousands of other functions.
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.
I am deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs.
I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission critical systems.
Whether intentional or unintentional, failure of these payment systems could stop Social Security checks from being sent to retirees who need to pay bills and buy food and drugs. It could stop paychecks from being sent to our troops and their families. As you well know, Americans are in the middle of tax filing season, with many counting on tax refunds that they are legally owed by the government.
Most importantly, the federal government is in a financially precarious position, currently utilizing accounting maneuvers to continue paying its bills since it reached the debt limit at the beginning of the year. I am concerned that mismanagement of these payment systems could threaten the full faith and credit of the United States.
Accordingly, I am deeply concerned by the possibility that Elon Musk and a cadre of other unknown DOGE personnel are seeking to gain access to and potentially control the Fiscal Service’s payment systems in order to carry out a political agenda that clearly involves violating the law. It appears that Musk’s behavior is forcing out highly qualified and experienced career public servants in order to get his way and fulfill Trump’s goal of eviscerating the federal budget, including potentially by cutting social security and Medicare benefits for millions of Americans who are already struggling to pay their bills or buy groceries.
The press has previously reported that Musk was denied a high-level clearance to access the government’s most sensitive secrets. I am concerned that Musk’s enormous business operation in China -- a country whose intelligence agencies have stolen vast amounts of sensitive data about Americans, including U.S. government employee data by hacking U.S. government systems—endangers U.S. cybersecurity and creates conflicts of interest that make his access to these systems a national security risk.
Musk now has access to data of all U.S. government employees with no oversight for cybersecurity issues Musk can cause.
DOGE operatives gained access to this Treasury payment system on Friday, the same day that an official at the Office of Personnel Management revealed that Musk operatives had locked career civil servants out of a computer system containing the personal information of federal employees. The action of this group of DOGE operatives, including Musk, is part of the Trump administration's efforts to assert authoritarian control over the federal government.
An Office of Personnel Management (OPM) official toldReuters that "we have no visibility" into what Musk aides "are doing with the computer and data systems," and "that is creating great concern. There is no oversight and it creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."
Earlier this week, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, warned that Trump "is trying every trick he and his Project 2025 cronies can think of to circumvent established civil service protections so they can purge the civil service of experts and replace them with political loyalists."
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Trump Budget Nominee Touts Welfare Reform That Doubled Extreme Poverty
Russ Vought, an architect of Project 2025, said he's "very proud" of Clinton-era welfare reform that devastated some of the nation's most vulnerable people.
Jan 22, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget told lawmakers Wednesday that he's "proud" of the impacts of Clinton-era welfare reform, a Republican-backed legislative change that doubled extreme poverty by stripping government support from some of the nation's most vulnerable people—including children with disabilities.
Pressed on his record of advocating work requirements for Medicaid recipients, Project 2025 architect Russ Vought told members of the Senate Budget Committee that "one of the major legislations that our side has been very proud of since the 1990s was the impact of welfare reform" and suggested it should be a model for the Trump administration to apply to other federal programs going forward.
"It led to caseload reductions, people getting off of welfare, going back into the workforce," Vought said of the 1996 reform, neglecting to mention research showing that the law resulted in an explosion of extreme poverty as people were often unable to find jobs after losing benefits.
In response to Vought's remarks, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) noted that Arkansas' temporary imposition of work requirements on Medicaid recipients—with a green light from the first Trump administration—was a "failed experiment," with thousands losing health coverage without any significant increase in employment.
Watch the exchange:
At @SenateBudget confirmation hearing, Russell Vought says he's "very proud" of his plans to take Medicaid away from people who can't work.@SenJeffMerkley tells Vought this would trap Americans in poverty: "The way that people are able to work is when they're healthy". pic.twitter.com/3GmaVwmnVo
— Social Security Works (@SSWorks) January 22, 2025
Later in Wednesday's hearing, Vought—a longtime supporter of Medicaid cuts—said that "we need to go after the mandatory programs," a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Republicans in Congress have reportedly discussed cutting trillions of dollars from Medicaid to help pay for another round of tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.
During his time questioning Vought on Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that "the distillation of the Trump economic program is to give tax breaks to all the people at the top, and it's gonna be paid for by" cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.
"We would not characterize our economic program that way," Vought replied.
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