Or Is It Already Too Late?
A USAID employee, on Musk dismantling the agency, noted that “It’s the richest person in the world taking away from the poorest people in the world. People will die from this— like thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.” Don’t forget that “Nobody voted for Elon Musk. And nobody wants airplanes to fall out of the sky. But after Musk pushed out the head of the FAA and Trump gutted the agency’s safety board, and musk attempted to push air traffic controllers to quit, the worst domestic airline disaster since 2001 occurred. Nobody voted for Elon Musk. And nobody in their right mind wants him and his edgelord flunkies rooting around Treasury Department databases that contain private Social Security and Medicare data for all US citizens. Nobody voted for Elon Musk. And nobody wants him to use Treasury payment data to potentially gain an advantage over his competitors. Nobody voted for Elon Musk. And nobody wants him to use his newfound power to coerce South Africa into abandoning laws on Black investment instated after the fall of apartheid— at least when it comes to his company Starlink. Nobody voted for Elon Musk. And while most Americans don’t understand how little we spend on foreign aid (less than 1 percent of the federal budget, even as oligarch-friendly tax expenditures gobble far more)— few would begrudge that pittance if they knew it not only prevents famine and disease but also curbs the mass migration and terrorism that can result from such plagues. And that axing USAID, as Musk is gleefully doing, hands a soft-power bonanza to [his cronies in] China.”
Elizabeth Warren Ron Wyden called on the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog, to investigate Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent’s decision to grant access to sensitive government payment systems to Elon Musk and other DOGE employees. Warren told her constituents that the “systems process trillions of dollars of transactions each year, including the timely disbursement of Social Security checks, tax refunds, and Medicare benefits, and are essential to preventing a default on federal debt… Meddling with these systems can pose a threat to our economic and national security. First, these payment systems control the flow of over $6 trillion in payments to American families, businesses, and other recipients each year. Information in these systems is critical to the Department’s managing payments on the national debt. Second, these systems contain sensitive personal information about millions of Americans who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds, and other payments from the federal government. It is unclear why Musk and unknown individuals on his team were granted unfettered access to this information, and what protections are in place to ensure Americans’ privacy is protected. And third, with access to these critical systems, Musk, DOGE employees, or others in the Trump Administration could use this as a cover to unilaterally restrict or defund programs Americans rely on.”
The 2 senators “directed the GAO to investigate and determine which specific systems were accessed, which individuals have access to this sensitive information and whether they have the appropriate clearances, and to identify whether guardrails are in place to protect economic and national security and Americans’ privacy. The Senators also raised questions about the implications of Musk’s conflicts of interest. Twitter announced that it would be partnering with Visa on a payment system it plans to launch this year, raising the possibility that individuals granted access to these payment systems may be using information they obtained via this access for their own personal gain. Musk’s Tesla has significant ties to China, where the company operates its largest factory by output and receives favorable treatment from the Chinese government, raising questions of whether appropriate protections are in place to identify and manage national security risks related to individuals who may have had access to the system.”
Wisely, Warren and Widen both voted against confirming Bessent. Senate Democrats who voted with the Republicans to confirm him are for the most part a more conservative— and less courageous— bunch, including Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Cory Booker (NJ), Maria Cantwell (WA), Chris Coons (DE), John Fetterman (PA), Ruben Gallego (AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Maggie Hassan (NH), John Hickenlooper (CO), Tim Kaine (VA), Mark Kelly (AZ), Angus King (I-ME), Gary Peters (MI), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Elissa Slotkin (MI) and Mark Warner (VA)… for anyone who keeps track.
Meanwhile 2 federal employees are seeking a temporary restraining order as part of a class action lawsuit accusing Musk’s Lord of the Flies gang of operating an illegally connected server from the fifth floor of the US Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) headquarters.
Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney reported that “Musk’s headlong rush to take control of crucial federal agencies and functions— and to dismantle some of them virtually overnight— has stoked widespread alarm in Washington about the aims of his Trump-backed mission. The opaque office’s early moves have violated the Privacy Act and cybersecurity laws, according to legal experts, and triggered a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s assault on government bureaucracy.” No wonder Ramaswamy— who has electoral ambitions— bailed fast!
“The scale here is unprecedented in terms of the risk to sensitive personal and financial information,” said Alan Butler of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It’s an absolute nightmare.”
…Mary Ellen Callahan, former Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, called DOGE’s access “a data breach of exponential proportions.” “If we lose control of that data, we’ve lost control forever,” she said.
The suit filed in federal court in Washington on Monday by the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union argues that the Trump administration is breaching the Privacy Act of 1974 by sharing payment information with members of the DOGE team.
Other lawyers said DOGE’s access could also violate cybersecurity-related laws, like the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2002.
Reports that career employees at the Office of Personnel Management were locked out of key databases by DOGE personnel also triggered deep concern Monday among legal and security experts. A key OPM database was breached by hackers in 2013, prompting widespread outrage from lawmakers and federal workers. The U.S. government blamed the hack on China and said the data could be used to target or enlist federal employees in espionage.
“They’re not following the law, they’re not following any semblance of best practice, they’re just hacking and slashing government IT systems in a way that threatens national security and puts everyone at risk,” Butler said.
Dorothy Reik, a prominent member of the California Democratic Party Executive Board, rushed an e-mail to Adam Schiff: “Why aren’t you refusing unanimous consent to stop the confirmation of Kennedy, Gabbard and the rest of Trump’s crime family? You already let Hegseth and other reprobates get confirmed! And why aren’t you screaming from the rafters that Trump has put an illegal ‘alien’— yes he’s an illegal alien— in charge of our country? He needs to be deported and all the dollars our government paid him should be confiscated. All his billions belong to the taxpayers. He got rich of government contracts for companies funded by U.S. taxpayers.”
Earlier, Holly Otterbein, Eli Stokols and Jordain Carney reported that Musk has been “working at breakneck speed over the weekend to wipe out” USAID, while his allies got access toTreasury’s payments system and locked government employees out of their computers that hold sensitive data… Musk’s dizzying takeover of Washington, which has frightened Democrats and some Republicans, has renewed speculation within GOP circles about whether the mutually beneficial relationship between the world’s richest man and the president will eventually implode. Musk’s recent moves also underscore how serious he is about executing his far-reaching plans to reshape the government, flying in the face of critics who argued his so-called Department of Government Efficiency would be a do-nothing blue-ribbon commission… ‘[Trump’s] fine with Elon being the bad guy,’ a person [close to Trump] said, noting that Trump typically pays close attention to news coverage but may care little himself about the details of whether USAID would be folded into the State Department or shuttered altogether. ‘But things can always change.’”
Career government officials, Democratic lawmakers and nongovernmental organizations have scrambled to shine a light on Musk’s efforts, many of which they’ve argued he doesn’t have the legal authority to carry out absent approval from Congress. Even some conservatives have raised concerns over Musk’s actions. So far, though, they have been vastly outpaced by Musk, who has taken to Twitter to [bait Democrats and] build public support for shock-and-awe efforts.
Though Musk posted on Twitter throughout the weekend that it was time for USAID to “die” and bragged that he was “feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that Democratic lawmakers held a press conference in hopes of saving the agency.
Likewise, days after Musk’s allies gained access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would work on legislation stopping the “unlawful peddling.” Schumer said, “It’s like letting a tiger into a petting zoo and hoping for the best.”
…Musk may have boxed Democrats into defending an institution that voters aren’t terribly fond of. Democratic and Republican strategists said that voters in polls and focus groups either know little about foreign aid or believe it is a poor use of resources.
Congressional perspectives on Musk run the gamut from Marjorie Traitor Greene's embarrassing ass-licking to Thom Tillis’ statement that “nobody should bellyache” about what he’s doing… That runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense. But it’s not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending” to AOC telling her Instagram followers that “This dude is probably one of the most unintelligent billionaires I have ever met or seen or witnessed... This dude is not smart, and the danger in the lack of intelligence and the lack of expertise that Elon has, I mean, this guy is one of the most morally vacant, but also just least knowledgeable about these systems that we know of.”