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New York Times
16-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Finding 314 Things the Government Might Know About You
As a reporter for The Upshot, a section of The New York Times that specializes in explanatory and analytical journalism, Emily Badger is used to weeding through decades of data to discover insights. She has unearthed numbers on topics like federal worker resignations and how air-conditioning conquered the United States. She knew the U.S. government collected a lot of data about Americans. But she was surprised to discover how intimate that information could be. Your personal bank account number, for example. The date of your divorce. Whether you are estranged from your parents. This information has long been stored in disconnected government data systems. But the Trump administration is now trying to link those systems and consolidate the data under Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. Doing so raises major privacy and security concerns, experts say. Ms. Badger, along with Sheera Frenkel, a Times technology reporter, recently spent about a month and a half compiling and analyzing information about the vast trove of data the U.S. government keeps on Americans. 'We had the idea to publish an extremely long list of everything the government potentially knows about you,' Ms. Badger said in a recent interview. That is exactly what they did. In an article published this month, Ms. Badger and Ms. Frenkel outlined the hundreds of pieces of demographic and identifying personal information the government might know about you, and explored how that information may be at risk if consolidated. They discussed their reporting over a video call. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. What led you to pursue this article? EMILY BADGER About a month and a half ago, we started to see stories of DOGE going into agencies and trying to get access to sensitive data systems. We teamed up with The Times's D.C. bureau, which had already begun to build a spreadsheet of data systems that their reporters had seen that DOGE was starting to access. I reached out to Sheera, who has written extensively about data privacy. What were your primary reporting challenges? BADGER There were three. The first was identifying these data systems. It's one thing to read a story that says DOGE is trying to access sensitive financial information at the Treasury Department, but what we really needed to know was what data system they were trying to access — was it the Payment Automation Manager system, for example? The second was trying to figure out what was contained in these systems, with as much specificity as we could. We didn't want to just say 'financial data'; we wanted to say if it was your bank account number, and whether it was a checking account or a savings account. How did you determine what data was in the systems? BADGER I learned from a source that all government data systems that contain personal information are required by law to produce documents called privacy impact assessments. In them, an agency spells out the purpose of a data system, how the data is protected and who can access it. I felt like I'd stumbled across a cheat code for exactly what we were looking for. Along with Sheera and one of our colleagues, Aaron Krolik, I started looking for documents associated with these different systems. The third reporting challenge was trying to determine: If the government already has this data, what's the big deal if it's going to start trying to link it across different agencies? Why is that a problem? SHEERA FRENKEL We asked people in the national security establishment and lawyers filing lawsuits: What's going to be done with this data? We discovered that there's a great deal of concern among the national security establishment as to whether we're creating a one-stop shop for foreign hackers. What are the strongest arguments for how a consolidated data trove could be useful, as well as for how it could be misused? BADGER Advocates on the left have argued in the past that if we link administrative data that the government holds, we can make a well-oiled social safety net that isn't so difficult for people to access. For instance, we could link these different data systems so that, when you're applying for food stamps, a flag goes up that says, 'You also qualify for housing assistance.' But what is becoming much clearer is that you would also be creating something ripe for misuse. You could create a system in which the White House says, 'These are my political opponents, and I want all of them to get really rigorous audits by the I.R.S.' Or a system that says, 'We are trying to round up immigrants whom we want to deport, and we know their addresses because when their children applied for student loans, their parents' names and tax ID numbers were listed on those forms.' FRENKEL There's always been this sense that, if the government could just make it easier, if there could be one condensed list of information on Americans, that would help the government give people the aid they need. But most privacy and security experts said there's no way to do this safely. How does the U.S. government's data consolidation under DOGE compare with the systems in other countries? FRENKEL It's what we see a lot of authoritarian regimes do when they want to control a population, when they want to try and root out political dissidents or suppress members of the opposition. Is there a way to opt out? FRENKEL No. Ultimately, the government's going to collect data on its citizens. What's really concerning is that, right now in America, some people who are immigrants, who might be undocumented, are not applying for government services because they're worried about data collection. Emily and I have spoken to immigration lawyers who say they're seeing people pull their kids out of public schools, move homes or not apply for welfare benefits. What questions do you still hope to answer? FRENKEL What the government is going to do with all this data is a really important next question for us. BADGER There is a raft of lawsuits that have been filed arguing that DOGE is not allowed to do what it is doing. How are the courts going to handle that? The legal plotline is an open one that we'll continue to follow.
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.
WIRED
07-02-2025
- Business
- WIRED
A US Treasury Threat Intelligence Analysis Designates DOGE Staff as ‘Insider Threat'
Vittoria Elliott Leah Feiger Feb 7, 2025 2:47 PM An internal email reviewed by WIRED calls DOGE staff's access to federal payments systems 'the single biggest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.' The US Treasury building in Washington, DC. Photograph:Members of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team have had access to the US Treasury Department's payment systems for over a week. On Thursday, the threat intelligence team at one of those systems recommended that DOGE members be monitored as an 'insider threat.' Sources say members of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service's IT division and others received an email detailing these concerns. 'There is ongoing litigation, congressional legislation, and widespread protests relating to DOGE's access to Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,' reads a section of the email titled 'Recommendations,' reviewed by WIRED. 'If DOGE members have any access to payment systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems.' Although Treasury and White House officials repeatedly denied it, WIRED has reported that DOGE technologists had the ability to not only read the code of sensitive payment systems, but rewrite it. Marko Elez, one of a number of young men identified by WIRED who have little to no government experience but are associated with DOGE, was granted read and write privileges on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the BFS, an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $5.45 trillion in the fiscal year of 2024. 'There is reporting at other federal agencies indicating that DOGE members have performed unauthorized changes and locked civil servants out of the sensitive systems they gained access to,' the 'Recommendations' portion of the email continues. 'We further recommend that DOGE members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked. Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even 'read only,' likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.' The recommendations were part of a weekly report sent out by the BFS threat intelligence team to hundreds of staffers. 'Insider threat risks are something [the threat intelligence team] usually covers,' a source told WIRED. 'But they have never identified something inside the Bureau as an insider threat risk that I know of.' The Treasury Department and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Got a Tip? Are you a current or former employee at the Treasury or Bureau of the Fiscal Service? Or other government tech worker? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporters securely on Signal at velliott88.18 and leahfeiger.86. The email also details this week's Treasury lawsuit, which resulted in a federal judge granting an order on February 6 to temporarily restrict DOGE staffers from accessing and altering payment system information. In a section of the email titled 'Analyst Notes,' the email delves into the fallout from the suit. 'A court order formalizing an agreement reportedly restricting DOGE's access to Treasury was issued, but specifically provides 'read only' exemptions for Marko Elez (DOGE member at Fiscal Service and Treasury) and Thomas (aka Tom) Krause (DOGE member at Treasury),' it states. 'This access still poses an unprecedented insider threat risk.' Elez previously worked for SpaceX, Musk's space company, and X, Musk's social media company. Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal inquired with the White House about his connections to 'a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.' Elez did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a letter to Bessent on February 7, senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said that "Treasury's refusal to provide straight answers about DOGE's actions, as well as its refusal to provide a briefing requested by several Senate committees only heightens my suspicions,' and requested that Bessent provide the logs of Elez and any other DOGE-affiliated personnel regarding their access to the Treasury's systems.
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WIRED
07-02-2025
- Business
- WIRED
The US Treasury Claimed DOGE Technologist Didn't Have ‘Write Access' When He Actually Did
Vittoria Elliott Leah Feiger Tim Marchman Feb 6, 2025 6:55 PM Sources tell WIRED that the ability of DOGE's Marko Elez to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded days after US Treasury and White House officials said it didn't exist. Photograph:US Treasury Department and White House officials have repeatedly denied that technologists associated with Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had the ability to rewrite the code of the payment system through which the vast majority of federal spending flows. WIRED reporting shows, however, that at the time these statements were made, a DOGE operative did in fact have write access. Not only that, but sources tell WIRED that at least one note was added to Treasury records indicating that he no longer had write access before senior IT staff stated it was actually rescinded. Marko Elez, a 25-year-old DOGE technologist, was recently installed at the Treasury Department as a special government employee. One of a number of young men identified by WIRED who have little to no government experience but are currently associated with DOGE, Elez previously worked for SpaceX, Musk's space company, and X, Musk's social media company. Elez resigned Thursday after the Wall Street Journal inquired about his connections to 'a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.' As WIRED has reported, Elez was granted privileges including the ability to not just read but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS), an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $5.45 trillion in fiscal year 2024. Reporting from Talking Points Memo confirmed that Treasury employees were concerned that Elez had already made 'extensive changes' to code within the Treasury system. The payments processed by BFS include federal tax returns, Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income benefits, and veteran's pay. Over the last week, the nuts and bolts of DOGE's access to the Treasury has been at the center of an escalating crisis. On January 31, David Lebryk, the most senior career civil servant in the Treasury, announced he would retire; he had been placed on administrative leave after refusing to give Musk's DOGE team access to the federal payment system. The next morning, sources tell WIRED, Elez was granted read and write access to PAM and SPS. On February 3, Politico reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Republican lawmakers in the House Financial Services Committee that Musk and DOGE didn't have control over key Treasury systems. The same day, The New York Times reported that Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, said that DOGE's access was 'read only.' Got a Tip? Are you a current or former employee at the Treasury or Bureau of the Fiscal Service? Or other government tech worker? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporters securely on Signal at velliott88.18, dmehro.89, leahfeiger.86, and timmarchman.01. The significance of this is that the ability to alter the code on these systems would in theory give a DOGE technologist—and, by extension, Musk, President Donald Trump, or other actors—the capability to, among other things, illegally cut off Congressionally authorized payments to specific individuals or entities. (CNN reported on Thursday that Musk associates had demanded that Treasury pause authorized payments to USAID, precipitating Lebryk's resignation.) On February 4, WIRED reported that Elez did, in fact, have admin access to PAM and SPS. Talking Points Memo reported later that day that Elez had 'made extensive changes to the code base for these critical payment systems.' In a letter that same day that did not mention Musk or DOGE, Treasury official Jonathan Blum wrote to senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, 'Currently, Treasury staff members working with Tom Krause, a Treasury employee, will have read-only to the coded data of the Fiscal Service's payment systems.' (Krause is the top DOGE operative at Treasury and CEO of Cloud Software Group.) The letter did not say what kind of access the staff members actually had. Sources tell WIRED that by afternoon of the next day, February 5, Elez's access had been changed to 'read only' from both read and code-writing privileges. That same day, a federal judge granted an order to temporarily restrict DOGE staffers from accessing and changing Treasury payment system information, following a lawsuit alleging the Treasury Department provided 'Elon Musk or other individuals associated with DOGE' with access to the payment systems and that this access violated federal privacy laws. The order specifically provided a carve out for two individuals: Krause and Elez. At a court hearing later that day, Department of Justice lawyer Bradley Humphreys asserted that the order said their access would be 'read only.' 'It's a distinction without a difference,' a source told WIRED. Referring specifically to the PAM, through which $4.7 trillion flowed in fiscal year 2024, they said Elez should not have had 'access to this almost $5 trillion payment flow, even if it's 'read-only.' None of this should be happening.' The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Elez did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 'People will be held accountable for the crimes they're committing in this coup attempt,' Wyden tells WIRED. 'I'm not letting up on my investigation of what these Musk hatchet men are up to.'
