Washington
Cnn
–
A few weeks before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the members of his transitional team went to the Treasury Department to talk about the transmission of power.
But what is normally a routine discussion has turned into an alarming series of interactions for a handful of senior career treasures.
Trump’s team, which included members of the Elon Musk government ministry, the treasury officials with one of the most sensitive and sensitive functions of the department: treating billions of dollars of dollars government payments per year.
Thanks to a series of specific requests, the Trump landing team tried to lift the hood from the department’s tax office, a branch of mysteries which distributes almost 90% of all federal payments, including services social security, tax reimbursements and payments to federal workers and entrepreneurs. This increases to one billion annual transactions totaling more than 5 dollars.
A month later, this Dark Treasury office is now a key battle front in a wider war waged by Trump and his allies on federal spending. Signs of combat emerged this week.
The best official in the Treasury Department, David Lebryk, goes unexpectedly after the officials affiliated to Trump expressed their interest in stopping certain payments made by the federal government, according to three people familiar with the situation.
According to a person familiar with the ministry, employees affiliated with Trump had asked questions about the treasure capacity to stop payments. But Lebryk’s discharge was, “we don’t do that,” said the person.
“They seem to want the treasure to be the point of strangling on payments, and it is unprecedented,” added the person, stressing that this is not the role of the office to decide what payments – it is “To make the F-IG payments”.
Before the inauguration of Trump, the members of his transition landing team wanted to experience granular details on the computer -owned computer systems, including “each stage of the disbursement process”. They also wanted to visit offices on the ground where government employees, in Philadelphia or Kansas, work on computers who pay payments.
Requests have intrigued many career officials initially. The transitional operation had not requested substantial briefs on the other areas of critical Treasury operations, several people familiar with the case said. The veterans of the past transition efforts, representing the presidents of the two parties, did not remember the previous one for the abolition of the Trump team.
With Trump who was to take office in a few days, officials found few reasons to open the doors to the country’s payment center. But the persistence of the emphasis put by the transitional operation on the payment infrastructure has shaken certain Treasury managers.
The arcanic process of reducing government checks is normally neglected by political leadership, although the inbound administration has expressed a strange interest in its internal functioning, according to sources – raising suspicions among career managers on the intention of DIY with a crucial financial pipeline that maintains the country of the country economy working.
The tensions between Lebryk and the people appointed Policy of Trump, including those affiliated with Doge, had crossed, sources indicating to CNN that things degenerated this week after the management and budget office had ordered one on Monday Flash freezing on billions of dollars in federal expenses.
At the time, Lebryk was the interim treasure secretary. Trump’s choice to direct the treasure, Scott Bessent, was sworn in on Tuesday. The OMB canceled this ordinance a few days later after a tumult which is still in the process of being complained before the court.
Lebryk’s departure, which he announced by email to his team on Friday morning, rocked those responsible for the career treasure, told CNN this week in several sources.
Lebryk’s release was reported for the first time by the Washington Post, but the full voltage scale inside the Treasury department was not reported before. Lebryk did not respond to a CNN investigation on Friday morning.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, classification member of the senatorial banking committee, called for an investigation Friday following news from Lebryk’s departure.
“It is alarming that Elon Musk is trying to access the critical payment system of the federal government, which is responsible for providing social security checks, tax reimbursements and benefits for Americans across the country”, Warren said in a statement provided to CNN. “It is just as alarming as Musk and the Trump administration have led the highest career manager in Treasury, because the agency already takes extraordinary measures to avoid an American defect.”
Several officials of the Trump administration, including treasury people, did not respond to several requests for comments this week.
Musk himself recognized his interest in the treatment of payments of the Treasury Department in an article in the middle of the night on his social media platform on Saturday.
He wrote his team “discovered, among other things, that the approval agents of treasure payments have always been invited to approve payments, even to fraudulent or known terrorist groups. They have literally never denied payment throughout their career. Not even once.
The post seemed to ignore the mechanisms already in place so that the Treasury can simply make legal payment decisions taken by other agencies, and that the value of the system in federal bureaucracy and the country’s economy lies in its reliability .
Jack Lew, who headed the Treasury Department in the second term of President Barack Obama, said any attempt to disrupt the payments made by the BFS would be dangerous for the global markets.
“The American people should not have to worry about political interference when it comes to receiving social security and other payments that the budgetary service makes,” Lew in CNN told. “And as a global reserve currency, it is crucial to maintain confidence worldwide that the United States government will make payments in a timely time on its obligations.”
Some of the members of the Trump landing team present for the first transitional meetings are now working in the Treasury Department.
Among them, Baris Akis, a musk ally which is the co-founder of a venture capital company, human capital. The presence of AKIS has raised alarms among some of the treasure officials present for these first meetings, because he was not an official member of the entrant Trump administration and had no security authorization at the time Sources said to CNN.
Akis, as well as some other affiliates in Musk’s Doge, have been in the treasure building in recent days. Familiar sources with the department indicate to CNN that they “go as a pack” – stressing how the group works in the building in a manner distinct from the rest of the staff in the department.
Akis did not respond to a request for CNN comments.
Meanwhile, several houses of houses in downtown Washington, Musk affirmed a significant influence at the office of personnel management, with at least another employee previously in human capital. The agency, which is the headquarters of human resources for the federal government, has always been an operation led by career officials who have worked in all the administrations of both parties.
Nomed politicians have long played a role, but according to a long -standing official, the current iteration “is like a different world”.
This world is now populated by a number of musk acolytes.
Amanda Scales, who previously worked for the artificial intelligence company of Musk, XAI after working for human capital, arrived at the OPM as the agency chief of staff on the day of the inauguration and Was the central figure identified with the agency’s radical efforts to restructure the federal workforce, several agencies have declared officials. She worked before at Akis’s Company.
Brian Bjelde, head of human resources for SpaceX, and Anthony Armstrong, a banker from Morgan Stanley who worked on the purchase of Twitter Musk, also assumed substantial roles. Musk worked at the OPM headquarters – with his substitutes with his side – last week, officials said.
Trump’s candidate to manage the OPM, Scott Kupor, awaits confirmation but also holds deep ties with the world of Silicon Valley integral to the Doge of Musk.
Non -profit organizations and the States led by Democrats are already continuing to try to block the Trump administration attempts to freeze federal spending. Despite the termination of the memo that directs the break, they say that the proceedings must continue, due to the proof that the funding is selected.
On Friday, a federal judge of Rhode Island told the Trump administration that he could not block payments to the states, and he could not try to restart payments in any agency under Trump. Other hearings are to come, including Monday morning before a distinct federal court, at DC.
Tribunal’s fights show how any action by the administration that stimulates funding mandated by the congress could attract aggressive disputes.
The proceedings have not yet discussed the work of the tax service office within the Treasury Department.
This story has been updated with new reports.
Alayna Tree of CNN has contributed to this report.
