Washington (AP) – The Government’s efficiency department, Managed by the billionaire councilor of President Donald Trump and CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, had access to sensitive cash data, in particular Social Security and the payment systems of Medicare customers, according to two people familiar with the situation.
The move of Doge, a working group on the Trump administration assigned to find ways of fire federal workersCut the programs and reduce federal regulations, means that it could have a wide room for maneuver to access the important data of taxpayers, among others.
The New York Times first announced the news of the group’s access to the massive federal payment system. The two people who spoke to the Associated Press spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly.
Friday, the best rank democrat in the Senatoric Finance Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon programs. “”
“To put it frankly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated radiation in them risks serious damage to our country and the economy,” said Wyden.
The news also intervenes after the Treasury acting assistant secretary David Lebryk resigned from his post to the Treasury after more than 30 years of service. The Washington Post reported on Friday that Lebryk had resigned from his position after Musk and his organization Doge had asked for access to sensitive cash data.
“The budgetary service fulfills some of the government’s most vital functions,” Lebryk said in a letter to the Treasury employees sent on Friday. “Our work can be unknown to most of the public, but that does not mean that it is not exceptionally important. I am grateful to have been able to work alongside some of the best and the most talented employees of the country’s operations. »»
The letter did not mention a Dogee request to access the payments of the Treasury.
Musk responded on Saturday to an article on his social media platform X on the departure of Lebryk: “The @doge team discovered, among other things, that the agents of approval of the payments of Treasury have always been invited to Approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They have literally never denied payment in all their careers. Not even once.
He did not provide proof of this statement.
Doge was originally led by Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who jointly promised to reduce the billions of the federal budget and to mitigate the “mass reductions of staff through the federal bureaucracy”.
Ramaswamy has since left Doge as he reflects on a race for the Ohio governor.