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'Deeply Concerned' Dems Want to Know If DOGE Can Access Nuclear Weapons Data
"The nation and the world need to know that U.S. nuclear secrets are robustly safeguarded," argue Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Don Beyer.
Feb 12, 2025
A pair of Democratic U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday asked the Trump administration to clarify whether any members of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have access to classified information about the nation's nuclear arsenal.
Responding to U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright's admission that he granted DOGE associates access to the Department of Energy, and to reporting that a 23-year-old former intern at Musk's SpaceX was allowed into DOE's IT systems without the requisite security clearances, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)—both members of the congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group—wrote to Wright to voice their concerns.
"The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an integral part of the Department of Energy, is entrusted with protecting the nation's most sensitive nuclear weapons secrets. The nation and the world need to know that U.S. nuclear secrets are robustly safeguarded," the lawmakers wrote.
"It is, therefore, dangerously unacceptable that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency—including individuals lacking adequate security clearances—has been granted access to DOE's information technology (IT) system despite legitimate security concerns inside the agency," they added.
Elon Musk and DOGE are getting access to the department that controls nuclear material for bombs. If we were alarmed at his access to systems for Medicare payments, we should be horrified by their access to nuclear payloads. I will be demanding answers. www.reuters.com/world/us/thr...
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— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) February 9, 2025 at 2:17 PM
"There is no justification for relaxing basic security procedures when it comes to our nuclear stockpile, but recent actions reflect a brazen disregard for DOE security policies," Markey and Beyer argued. "DOE must ensure that all personnel with access to classified information and systems surrounding our nation's nuclear arsenal follow the highest security standards."
The letter continues:
Recently, you were quoted as saying that three individuals involved with DOGE are at DOE and "have access to look around, talk to people, and give us some good feedback on how things are going." And, according to media reports, a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern, who does not have the appropriate security clearances needed to access DOE's IT system, received access over the objections of members of its general counsel and chief information offices. This incursion into some of the nation's most sensitive files is the latest in a series of Trump administration moves to plant unqualified Musk and DOGE staffers throughout the federal government, some of whom have records of leaking sensitive information and potentially wreaking havoc with vital information systems.
"As members of the congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, we are deeply concerned by this disregard of DOE security protocols and the potential impacts on our nuclear security," Markey and Beyer wrote.
The lawmakers asked Wright to answer the following questions by Friday:
- What is the process for granting, reviewing, and revoking security clearances for DOGE staffers at DOE?
- Have any DOGE staffers been given access to NNSA classified nuclear weapons information?
- Under what authority and justification was each instance of classified access granted to DOGE staffers?
- Are DOGE staffers required to undergo training on the handling of classified information?
- What security measures are in place to ensure DOGE staffers do not improperly access or inappropriately share sensitive nuclear secrets?
- Have any DOGE staffers with access to classified information had significant outside financial interests, foreign contacts, or other affiliations that could pose security concerns?
- Are NNSA employees included in the administration's buyout offer for federal employees?
- If so, and if senior NNSA employees leave the organization, how do you plan to maintain the security and secrecy of nuclear weapons and related information?
Appearing on
CNBC Friday, Wright dismissed "rumors" that DOGE members are "seeing our nuclear secrets."
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Trump FTC Urged to Probe Egg Giants Reaping 'Dramatic' Profits by Keeping Prices High
"Evidence indicates that by not increasing their supply, the five dominant egg firms are forcing prices to stay high while reporting dramatic profit increases and level sales," according to the group Farm Action.
Feb 12, 2025
An advocacy group dedicated to fighting corporate agriculture monopolies on Wednesday urged federal antitrust enforcers to take action against egg producers that the group accuses of taking advantage of the bird flu crisis in order to raise prices, inflate their profits, and consolidate their market power.
What's more, the slow recovery of "flock size"—the total number of egg-laying hens—"despite historically high prices, further suggests coordinated efforts to restrict supply and sustain inflated prices" that warrants investigation, according to a letter sent by Farm Action president Angela Huffman to Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson and Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed Assefi, who has been tapped to temporarily lead the DOJ antitrust division.
The letter, which invokes the behavior of "dominant egg producers," largely provides data on one company, Cal-Maine Foods, the biggest producer and marketer of shell eggs in the country.
Separately, Democratic voices are urging the Trump administration to take action around corporate conduct as it relates to food prices. FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, a Biden appointee, has also urged Ferguson to open an investigation into egg production and marketing practices—pointing to a 2023 request from Farm Action to the FTC to investigate potential antitrust violations in the egg industry.
And last week Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote that she had sent President Donald Trump a list of ways he "can use his executive authority to tackle high food costs by focusing on corporate profiteering."
Egg prices have risen starting in 2022, coinciding with the arrival of bird flu in the United States, and are likely to keep rising in 2025.
The wholesale price of "Grade-A, Large, White, Shell Eggs" rose from $0.50-$1.30 per dozen in 2021 to $1.50-$5.00 per dozen in 2022, and then eased in 2023 before climbing up again in 2024. As of January 2025, the national index of weekly prices for that same type of eggs was up to $6.00-$8.00 per dozen, according to Farm Action.
"The previous all-time high [for wholesale prices] was late December 2022 heading into Christmas, when we touched $5.46 per dozen," Ryan Hojnowski, a market reporter at Expana, wrote in an e-mail to CNBC. "Of course we have blown way past that this time."
Retail prices have also increased. Retail prices for large, Grade-A eggs reached an average of $4.25 per dozen in December 2022 after never reaching above $3 a dozen in the 2010s. Retail prices declined in 2023 and then rose again throughout 2024, reaching $4.15 per dozen in December of last year.
Farm Action argues that while bird flu has been cited as the main driver for rising egg prices, its actual impact on production has been minimal. According to the letter, bird flu has forced the culling of roughly 115 million egg-laying chickens, but the impact of these losses on the total size of the U.S. supply of egg-laying flock has been "relatively modest." Huffman wrote that this culling has caused egg production to drop from 8.1 billion eggs per month in 2021 to 7.75 billion eggs per month at the end of 2024.
But crucially, according to the letter, per capita production of eggs has not been below per capita consumption of eggs in any year between 2022 and the present—while the total value of egg production has risen from $8.8 billion in 2021 to $17.9 billion in 2023.
Cal-Maine specifically has seen its profits soar. The company tallied gross profits of $179.6 million in fiscal year 2020, but the producer reported $1.2 billion and $541.6 million in gross profits in fiscal year 2023 and 2024, respectively, according to the letter. Between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2024, sale levels have remained fairly consistent, wrote Huffman.
"Evidence indicates that by not increasing their supply, the five dominant egg firms are forcing prices to stay high while reporting dramatic profit increases and level sales. These same firms are then using their increased profits to acquire their competition, further driving market consolidation instead of investing in replenishing or expanding their flocks," Farm Action wrote in a statement on Wednesday.
As evidence, they cite a number of mergers that took place in the industry in 2023, and point to the fact that the top five egg producers' share of the "U.S. layer hen flock" increased from 37% to 46% between 2023 and 2025.
"There appears to be a remarkable unwillingness among large egg producers to invest in the internal reconstruction or expansion of their egg-laying flocks in response to persistently high prices," wrote Huffman, which she contrasts with the quicker flock recovery that took place during the first bird flu outbreak in 2014-2015.
The "lagging recovery" and "the fact that egg producers are showing unusual discipline in their pricing and output decisions" indicates that market forces are not "operating as they should be." The letter suggests a few factors that may contribute to the lack of competition.
The group is urging the two agencies to launch investigations, specifically encouraging the FTC to launch an investigation into pricing and production practices of dominant egg producers and their hatchery suppliers to make sure the market is "truly free and fair."
This is far from the first time that the food and grocery industry has been accused of inappropriately raising prices.
In August 2024, a top executive at the supermarket chain Kroger even admitted under questioning from a Federal Trade Commission attorney that the grocery chain raised its egg and milk prices above the rate of inflation.
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President Trump Must Reverse Course on Border Policy to Uphold Human Rights
Elected officials, civil society, and our communities must band together to resist the current assaults on asylum, and push for humane and welcoming border policies.
Feb 12, 2025
On January 20, the fate of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border was abruptly changed as U.S. President Donald Trump announced new executive orders further dismantling the right to asylum.
That morning, the patients I saw in our pop-up clinic at a migrant shelter were full of apprehension about the threatened Trump policies, but a sense of hope remained. One young man told me he was so excited he could barely sleep because his CBP One appointment, which would allow him and his family to request parole to enter the U.S. while they applied for asylum, was scheduled for the following day.
By noon, the tone had changed. People tried desperately to log in to the CBP One app but were given error messages. Cancelation notices arrived in the email inboxes of those who had already been granted appointments. One patient who had left his country fleeing political violence and had been waiting for eight months at the border for the appointment, frantically held his phone up to show me the email. “Now what are we supposed to do?” he lamented, “We have nowhere safe to go.”
There is much work to be done now to uphold human rights in the U.S. But we must not forget the people who are desperate for relief at our borders.
Indeed, the end of the CBP One appointment program has effectively closed the door on asylum seekers at the U.S.’ southern border. With the ongoing restrictions of the asylum ban and border closure rules put in place during the Biden administration, there are now no viable legal pathways to entry for the hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking safety at the border.
The effect on our patients waiting in Mexico has been devastating, and it’s only going to get worse. Patients came into the clinic reporting depression, panic attacks, and despair. Some had just narrowly survived being kidnapped, beaten, or raped, and were petrified about being targeted again by the organized crime groups that prey on migrants in Mexican border cities.
Over the years in our clinics, we have seen that increased restrictions in border policies—such as Trump’s Remain in Mexico—increase danger, injuries, mental health problems, childhood developmental problems, and untimely death for asylum seekers trying to make it to the U.S. Most recently, these issues had still been occurring given the long waiting periods of the CBP One system, but now they will undoubtedly worsen.
Being stranded leads people to make impossible choices. Some families will risk (and some lose) their lives trying to cross the swift currents of the Rio Grande or the harsh landscape of the desert. Some families choose to send their children over the border unaccompanied, taking on the trauma of family separation because they see no other way for their child to escape from danger and have a better life.
President Trump says we shouldn’t care about the plight of immigrants and should instead focus on American citizens’ needs—of which, undoubtedly, there are many. But such perspectives miss the bigger picture, and are, in fact, woefully inaccurate. Not only are we able to support immigrants, we desperately need to, for the sake of all of us. Without immigrants, we’d be facing a home care crisis, an agricultural crisis, and our economy would suffer. What’s more, the plight of migrants in transit impacts our communities in the U.S. I have patients at my primary care clinic in Massachusetts who have fallen into a deep depression or whose blood pressure has skyrocketed when a loved one of theirs is lost along the migrant route or is assaulted on the journey. Let alone our international and domestic legal obligations that require us to recognize and honor the right to seek asylum.
As our patients at the migrant shelter reeled from the news of the cancelation of CBP One, one man was still smiling. “I believe the new president will have compassion for us,” he said, standing outside his tent and nodding toward his wife and small children inside. “He has a family too. I pray that he will be able to understand that we need safety for our kids.”
It would be nice. But in the absence of that change of heart, our communities need to take action. Elected officials, civil society, and our communities must band together to resist the current assaults on asylum, and push for humane and welcoming border policies. There is much work to be done now to uphold human rights in the U.S. But we must not forget the people who are desperate for relief at our borders—it’s our obligation, and it’s a matter of life and death.
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