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WIRED
26-03-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Inside DOGE's Plan to Invade the Treasury—and Throttle USAID
Vittoria Elliott Matt Giles Mar 26, 2025 1:06 PM Court filings show that from the earliest days of the second Trump administration, Elon Musk's DOGE had a plan to infiltrate US Treasury payment systems—and turn them against USAID. Photograph:From the beginning of President Donald Trump's administration, Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had a plan to monitor USAID payments and was preparing to use US Treasury systems to halt them, according to new court documents, emails, and affidavits obtained by WIRED. Court documents in Alliance for Retired Americans et al v. Bessent et al and American Federation of Teachers et al v Bessent et al reveal the extent of DOGE's penetration into the most sensitive systems at the Treasury, including the Bureau of Fiscal Service (BFS), and what exactly DOGE was hoping to accomplish. The bureau is nested within the US Treasury and handles most federal payments, to the tune of more than $5 trillion a year. WIRED first reported that Marko Elez, a former engineer at X, the social media company owned by Musk, had read/write access to two BFS systems: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS). But documents now reveal that Elez also had 'read' access to Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP), an accounting system where federal funds are stored in pre-authorized accounts. Court documents shared by the government reveal Elez had access as of February 1. From court filings, it appears this access was in service of the administration's plans to target USAID. USAID was one of the earliest targets of DOGE and the Trump administration. Less than two weeks after Trump's inauguration, the majority of the agency's staff were placed on administrative leave and funding to many partner organizations was cut off. The documents appear to show how plans were in place for this sudden strangulation in payments to happen. In a January 26 email between Matthew Garber, a top Treasury official, and the Treasury secretary's chief of staff, Garber outlined the new administration's plan to utilize BFS access to halt payments to USAID. 'Fiscal will intercept USAID payments files prior to ingestion into our PAM/SPS systems (this is in place now and can begin immediately),' Garber wrote. 'We developed a process to intercept the file, and additional flags to ensure we catch all USAID payment requests through our systems.' (This email chain was included as part of documents shared in the Alliance for Retired Americans lawsuit.) 'Fiscal will manually pull an unredacted and unmodified copy to share with State officials,' Garber continued, outlining plans from his team. "State officials will review and provide a determination to Fiscal on whether or not to release the file into our normal payment processes.' A top Treasury official's calendar shows that a few days later, Elez arrived in Kansas City, one of the Bureau's main sites, and had a full docket of meet and greets and several deep dives with the teams responsible for each of the systems. The plan was for Elez to spend the next month at the facility to identify 'opportunities to advance payment integrity and fraud reduction goals.' According to a planning sheet, which was also shared with the court, 'only (1) individual (i.e. the designated technical team member)'—which was Elez—'requires access to Fiscal Service systems and data at this time.' Records show that in the final days of January, a request was placed to grant Elez access to both systems. On January 31, David Lebryk, who had been acting Treasury secretary and at one point was the commissioner of BFS, abruptly announced he would retire after he had been placed on administrative leave for refusing to provide DOGE with access to these payment systems. For those who knew the Treasury intimately, this set off alarm bells. That same day, according to an attachment provided by the government, at 6:07 PM, a ticket was filed disregarding a previous order just a day before to give Elez just read only access: 'sorry read/write is needed.' At the same time Lebryk stepped away, DOGE gained access to the entirety of USAID's IT systems and network, according to reporting from ProPublica. The next day, as the dismantling of USAID was underway, according to court documents, Elez was granted access to the source codes of ASAP, SPS, and PAM. He was also granted read-only access to the production database for the SPS and PAM. People with knowledge of Treasury systems tell WIRED that it would be uncommon, if not 'unheard of,' for a BFS employee to have access to all these systems simultaneously. 'Within Fiscal, the mainframe guys don't have write access to the databases and vice versa,' says a former BFS employee who requested anonymity in order to speak freely. Normally, they say, employees at BFS are given the minimum amount of access to systems required to do their jobs. 'No BFS employee would normally have this kind of access.' According to an affidavit from another top Treasury official, though, that plan to isolate USAID payment files outlined by Garber was temporarily paused for the next several days—the State Department had decided it would instead intercept the files. However, on February 4 and February 5, USAID payments flowed to the PAM portal designed by Garber's team. That same affidavit outlined the next steps: BFS was instructed to focus on flagging, quarantining, and sending several payments to State officials that fell under President Donald Trump's foreign aid executive order that stated there would be a 90-day pause on this aid as the State Department reviewed each program. This plan, according to an email chain included in one of the lawsuits, was vetted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was 'comfortable proceeding.' These payments, which originated from the Department of Health and Human Services, included funding for 'Refugee and Entrant Assistance,' 'Gifts and Donations Office of Refugee Resettlement,' and 'Refugee Resettlement Assistance.' By then, Musk had doubled down on his contempt for USAID: In a February 2 post on X, Musk wrote, 'USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.' DOGE operatives, including Luke Farritor, a young member, had gained 'super administrator' access to USAID's systems, according to ProPublica. Farritor, who had also been at the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the General Services Administration (GSA), was reportedly going through USAID's payment system manually, shutting off agency funding, according to the Washington Post. Elez was in the midst of a similar operation in Kansas City: according to that Treasury official's affidavit, the engineer began to manually identify and review the foreign aid payment files that had been sequestered in the folder Garber outlined in that late January email. Meanwhile, Treasury officials sought to give Elez even further access. A February 3 IT ticket, included in case documents from the Alliance for Retired Americans lawsuit, reveals that requests were made for Elez to access the Central Accounting Reporting System (CARS), 'the electronic system of record for the government's financial data.' That same day, a motion filed by the plaintiffs in another lawsuit alleges Elez copied and downloaded a pair of USAID files from the PAM database to his laptop; around that same time, an affidavit from the Bureau's chief security officer said Elez emailed a spreadsheet with personally identifiable information to two GSA officials via unencrypted channels. (Both of these actions are at the core of one of the lawsuits against Bessent and the Treasury Department; the plaintiffs in that suit were recently granted expedited discovery to access records related to Elez's tenure at BFS.) A DOGE team had already established a presence at GSA, which included Farritor, as well as former Tesla employee Thomas Shedd and other DOGE members Ethan Shaotran and Edward Coristine. After WIRED reported on February 4 that Elez had unprecedented access to the Treasury's payments systems, Bessent asserted in a letter to Congress that Tom Krause, then a special government employee associated with DOGE at the Treasury, only had 'read' access. Elez was not mentioned in that letter. In her memo granting a preliminary injunction in the American Federation of Teachers lawsuit, filed on March 24, Judge Deborah Boardman wrote, 'according to a spreadsheet attached to a February 3, 2025 email from a Treasury executive point person for the engagement, as of February 1, Elez had access to Treasury systems including PAM, SPS, and ASAP, and it was recommended that his access to other Treasury systems be expanded.' On February 5, while Elez had access to Treasury's most sensitive systems, he received an email from the deputy assistant commissioner for enterprise IT operations noting that, though he had been issued a BFS laptop, he had yet to sign the Bureau's 'rules of behavior.' (This email was included amongst documents shared by the government in one of the lawsuits.) Those rules include, following 'laws, regulations, and policies governing the use and entrance to such facilities,' and protecting any 'Fiscal Service data, equipment and IT systems from loss, theft, damage, and unauthorized use or disclosure.' Elez, it would appear, had already violated these rules by sharing the data with the GSA officials. The next day, Elez resigned after the Wall Street Journal sought comment for a report about racist posts on social media accounts that appeared to belong to him. Elez is now one of the many DOGE operatives working at the Social Security Administration. In late February, USAID said it would cancel 90 percent of the agency's contracts. The contract cancelations threw nonprofits around the world into chaos, and slowed the response to infectious diseases. Earlier this month, a federal judge said the dismantling of USAID 'likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways.' The Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This week, Trump signed an executive order stating that all federal payments should be consolidated within the Treasury. The order claims that doing so will help fight fraud, waste, and abuse. Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, believes the order means that, 'instead of having to send some DOGE guy into an agency to control the payments, it all happens in one place. It moves power away from agencies and centralizes it in the White House.' In his order, Trump claimed that $1.5 trillion passes through other avenues, known as non-Treasury disbursing offices. These are nested within certain agencies that are able to disburse funds without going through the BFS system. Moynihan alleges that the strangulation of USAID's funding could be a 'harbinger' of potential changes at other agencies. The administration appears particularly focused, he says, on 'the president having absolute power and control over where money goes regardless of laws on impoundment or statutes on agencies.' 'It's a consolidation of power in the name of efficiency,' he claims.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fed Staff Met With Treasury's DOGE Team in January, Filing Shows
(Bloomberg) -- Staff at the Federal Reserve cooperated with the Treasury Department to give Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency access to federal payment systems, according to a new court filing. NYC Congestion Pricing Toll Gains Support Among City Residents Trump DEI Purge Hits Affordable Housing Groups Where New York City's Zoning Reform Will Add Housing Electric Construction Equipment Promises a Quiet Revolution Inside the 'Not Architecture' of High Line Designers Diller Scofidio + Renfro The documents paint the clearest picture yet about contact between the Fed and Treasury in the early days of President Donald Trump's administration as Musk and members of his DOGE team sought to view some of the most sensitive federal databases. In late January, officials from the Treasury Department — including two DOGE team members — had meetings with Fed staff in Kansas City, according to a preliminary agenda for the event. At those gatherings, officials held technical discussions on two crucial Treasury payments systems. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress in February that the central bank has had 'no contact' with DOGE. A spokesperson for the Fed in Washington didn't provide comment and Treasury Department officials did not respond to requests for comment. Thomas Krause, the Cloud Software Group CEO who's acting as the Treasury DOGE team lead, was slated to attend the meetings, according to the filing. Also included: Marko Elez, the DOGE software engineer who was briefly given access to Treasury payments data before resigning after being linked to social media accounts espousing racist beliefs. Elez was later rehired. Both Krause and Elez at the time served in a dual capacity, both as Treasury employees and as members of the DOGE team. The documents outlining those meetings were included in an 215-page filing by Treasury Chief of Staff Daniel Katz as part of a court case led by the Alliance for Retired Americans. That lawsuit has accused the Treasury Department of violating the Privacy Act by allowing DOGE access to payments data that contains personal information on taxpayers, beneficiaries, contractors and employees. The Fed acts as the fiscal agent for the federal government, processing payments on the Treasury Department's behalf. Powell has said the central bank makes no judgments on outgoing government payments. The partially redacted preliminary agenda did not name the Fed officials participating, identifying them only as the 'FRB leadership team.' The document stated that a final list of participants would be added later. Payment Systems DOGE access to payment systems — the Payment Automation Manager and the Automated Standard Application for Payments — has been a controversial subject, with lawmakers and government officials raising concerns about the privacy and security of the flow of federal money. It could also reopen the debate over 'prioritization' — the idea that the Treasury Department could decide to make some payments and not others in the event of a debt-ceiling crisis. If Congress fails to raise the $36.1 trillion debt limit before the Treasury exhausts its available cash, bond holders might still be paid, for example, while contractors, employees and perhaps even Social Security beneficiaries have their payments reduced or delayed. Kansas City is a major back-office hub for the complex web of systems that manage $5.4 trillion in annual payments by the federal government. The Treasury's Federal Disbursement Services is located there, as is the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which effectively serves as the bank for some of those payments. A spreadsheet compiled after the meeting gave a status report on giving DOGE access to Treasury systems, including the PAM, which the government uses to process all US-dollar denominated payments. Many of the systems required both the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service and the Federal Reserve to approve access, with some access requests marked as 'completed.' 'For the items that Fiscal can implement independently we will get moving immediately, and Marko should see read-only soon,' said an email from Matthew Garber, who was then performing the duties of the Fiscal Assistant Secretary. 'For the items the Fed needs to implement we're working with the lawyers on the language now. Good conversations with our counterparts, so I do not currently expect any issues,' according to the email from Garber. Congressional Questions The meetings came two weeks before Powell's testimony to the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 12, when the panel's top Democrat Maxine Waters quizzed Powell on whether the Federal Reserve was cooperating with DOGE. 'When Musk comes knocking at the Fed's door, you going to let him in?' she asked. 'I don't have anything for you on that,' Powell said. 'Would you like to tell us today that you won't let DOGE into the Federal Reserve or have access to the systems and the data?' Waters followed up. 'We've had no contact,' he replied. In a memo outlining the DOGE payments project dated Jan. 24, the Treasury Department contained a stern warning for the repercussions if Musk's cost-cutting efforts interrupted payments. Any disruption to daily operations, the document said, 'could have catastrophic consequences' that could include defaults on government financial obligations and jeopardize social support payments to millions of Americans. In a Senate hearing on Feb. 11, Powell said any decision to stop payments comes from the Treasury Department, not the Federal Reserve. 'We make no judgments whatsoever. Those are all made upstream from us and we are, in fact, the fiscal agent of the Treasury,' he said. --With assistance from Daniel Flatley and Amara Omeokwe. How Natural Gas Became America's Most Important Export Disney's Parks Chief Sees Fortnite as Key to Its Future How America Got Hooked on H Mart Germany Is Suffering an Identity Crisis 80 Years in the Making The Mysterious Billionaire Behind the World's Most Popular Vapes ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘It's demoralizing': Trump's climate funding freeze has left tribes in limbo
Naveena SadasivamGrist When the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe landed a $19.9 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency in early January, Robert Byrnes was elated. As a grant writer for the tribe, he and a few other employees had pulled 60-hour weeks during the holidays to ensure the agency had all the paperwork it needed to award the funds. The much-needed money would be put to use on the tribe's reservation in South Dakota, repairing a historic bridge that had been razed a few years ago due to safety concerns, replacing asphalt roofs, and establishing resilience hubs to help tribal members during extreme weather. The grant was, as Byrnes put it, the 'hugest' the tribe ever received for environmental work. Once the agreement was inked on January 10, the tribe got access to the money through the Automated Standard Application for Payments, an online portal that grant recipients use to submit reimbursements and draw down their funds. In the weeks that followed, the tribe made a call for bids, hired contractors, and bought roofing materials, construction supplies, safety equipment, and freeze-dried food to stock the resilience hub. Work proceeded quickly until the Trump administration issued a memo on January 27 directing federal agencies to freeze all funding. Suddenly, the tribe was shut out of its funding. Its $7 million grant to install solar panels through the EPA's Solar for All program also is in limbo. Byrnes remains unsure about the future of a $300,000 grant for resilient infrastructure from the Department of Energy and $600,000 for food distribution from the Department of Agriculture. 'We've got a lot of hours invested,' said Byrnes. 'It's demoralizing especially after a signed contract. And you would think at that point, you got a contract with the federal government that should be pretty secure.' He said the tribe hasn't been reimbursed for roughly half a million the last two weeks, community groups, environmental organizations, and tribes that had been awarded billions in funding for climate and equity work have been scrambling to assess what the federal funding freeze means for them. One nonprofit with a $2.2 million Community Change grant from the EPA has accrued half a million dollars in unreimbursed expenses and has decided to stop hiring people. Others have pulled out of partnerships funded by the federal government, paused work with contractors, and are considering laying off or furloughing employees. 'It's insane,' said the leader of one nonprofit. 'The last three weeks have been lost work.' (Several grant recipients requested anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize federal funding, but a review of publicly available government spending data confirmed that they received grants.) These groups have been unable to access their money despite at least two court orders requiring that the federal government release it. On January 31, a Rhode Island court issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration. Then, on Monday, the same court ruled that the government continued withholding funds in defiance of that order. It ordered the government to 'immediately restore frozen funding' and 'immediately end any federal funding pause.' (On Tuesday, a federal appeals court rejected the Justice Department's request to lift the restraining order.) But as of Tuesday, many of the nonprofits and others awaiting disbursements still don't have access to them. Meanwhile, they continue incurring costs. Because grant payments are made through reimbursements, recipients are expected to front the money for any expenses, then submit receipts electronically for reimbursement. In some cases, this happens instantaneously. Since many of the grants cover payroll, labor costs, and supplies, those relying on them tend to submit this paperwork on a rolling basis. Some groups are seeking bridge loans and ways to cover the shortfall. 'There are all kinds of ways that folks are trying to mitigate harm, but they're not going to be able to avoid harm,' said Hana Vizcarra, a senior attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice. 'There's harm to the communities they're working in because if they're unable to move forward with projects or have stalled those projects, that has an impact on the communities.' On President Trump's first day in office, he signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to pause all funding appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law, both of which Congress passed to infuse the economy with billions of dollars for climate and environmental projects. The government appeared to release at least some funding following last month's court order. On February 4, the EPA sent an internal memo notifying employees that it is unfreezing funds, including those from the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law, to comply with that order. The letter noted that the agency's Office of Budget would provide a 'detailed list' of programs that will continue receiving funds. But a follow-up list reviewed by Grist included just one Inflation Reduction Act program for 'consumer education.' Then on Thursday, Chad McIntosh, the agency's acting deputy administrator, instructed his staff to review all grant programs. Grist reviewed that directive which said that was needed to root out fraud and abuse. 'Congress has been clear on the need for oversight of funds provided to the agency for the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and other funding programs that may be improperly utilized,' the memo noted. The following day, the agency's budget office sent an internal email announcing a funding pause for more than two dozen air pollution, environmental justice, and clean vehicle programs. 'This list includes a number of climate and equity grants,' said Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, an environmental nonprofit that helps local groups navigate EPA's grantmaking process. 'And grantees are being told that EPA is releasing funding in tranches.' In a statement, an EPA spokesperson told Grist the agency had begun disbursing funds tied to the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law. It has over the last week worked to ensure access was restored 'by Friday afternoon,' according to an email. However, it also has identified several programs 'as having potential inconsistencies with necessary financial and oversight procedural requirements or grant conditions of awards or programs.' The spokesperson also said the agency received 'numerous concerning responses' to EPA administrator Lee Zeldin's call for tips about theft of funds and misuse of grant money. Some groups saw their funding restored on Friday only to lose it again. The Gonzaga Institute for Climate, Water, and the Environment, along with its partners, secured nearly $20 million from the EPA in early January in part to build climate resilience hubs in Spokane, Washington. When the institute lost access to that money last week, it grappled with what that might mean for its work. The group had already hired a program coordinator and debated whether it could continue to employ them. Brian G. Henning, the organization's director, felt relief when the freeze was lifted Friday. The hammer fell again on Tuesday, but Henning said the institute remains committed to its work. 'We're a Jesuit Catholic humanist university committed to social and environmental justice and see part of the reason for our existence as wanting to serve those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of a rapidly changing climate,' said Henning. 'We have a legal obligation under this contract, but we also have a moral responsibility to see this work through.'
USA Today
06-02-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Federal money for 6 Cape Cod water quality projects still frozen after Trump order
Federal money for 6 Cape Cod water quality projects still frozen after Trump order Federal funding remains frozen for six water quality restoration projects on the Cape, despite challenges to President Donald Trump's executive order. Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, has been unable to submit payment requests through the federal government portal since Jan. 21, the day after Trump took office. 'I just told the Harwich Conservation Trust to put the brakes on a construction contract because we don't have the money or the assurance we can pay for it,' he said in a Feb. 5 telephone interview. The contract is for Hinckleys Pond work. The nonprofit signed two contracts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for projects to restore salt marshes, wetlands, tidal exchanges, and a cold-water fishery in Falmouth, Mashpee, Dennis and Harwich. Partners in the work include the towns of Dennis, Falmouth, Mashpee, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, Harwich Conservation Trust and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. But one of the executive orders Trump signed during his first week in office paused disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Gottlieb believes that's the reason he hasn't been able to submit invoices. 'We've been unable to access the federal payment system to submit invoices for work legally authorized to be completed under the terms of binding contracts,' he said in a telephone interview Feb. 5. The Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP) is an electronic system that federal agencies use to transfer money. Gottlieb has tried to access the system several times daily. 'When contracts are signed, the money transfers off the agency's account into the ASAP system which is managed under the Department of Treasury,' he said. 'That money is then available because it's been encumbered by the contract and distributed for legally authorized program activities and uses.' Those two legally binding contracts, totaling $17.5 million, were authorized by Congress for the following projects: The restoration of a tidal pond and salt marsh at Oyster Pond in West Falmouth. A bog and wetland restoration project at Red Brook on the Falmouth/Mashpee border. The restoration of a cold-water fisheries habitat for herring migration on the Upper Quashnet River in Mashpee. The restoration of Mashpee River from Mashpee Pond to the tidal exchange on Route 28. A salt marsh restoration project at the Weir Creek system in Dennis. A cranberry bog and natural wetland conversion at Hinckleys Pond in Harwich. The federal agency Gottlieb works with hasn't been able to give him any information. He was told to contact the ASAP help line, but no one picks up. 'You can grow old waiting on the line,' he said. 'No one answers. It's pretty bad.' Denise Coffey writes about business, tourism and issues impacting the Cape's residents and visitors. Contact her at dcoffey@ . Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Cape Cod Times subscription. Here are our subscription plans.
