Senate Banking, Finance, and Appropriations Committee Leaders Demand Answers from Secretary Bessent After Misrepresentations on DOGE Access to Treasury Data, Payment Systems
New Court Documents Reveal That Treasury Provided Incomplete, Misleading Information
“[Y]ou are either misrepresenting basic facts to Congress and the American people – or simply do not know what DOGE is doing in your agency.”
“You said that a longtime technology executive was looking at Treasury systems, but it was actually a 25-year-old programmer who quickly resigned after his racist social media posts went viral.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressing grave concerns over new court documents indicating that Treasury misrepresented the type of access granted to Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials regarding sensitive payment systems and Americans’ personal information. These critical systems ensure that tens of millions of Americans receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds, and Medicare benefits.
The senators highlighted the troubling inconsistencies in the information Treasury Secretary Bessent provided to Congress and the public, specifically regarding the scope of access and the potential risks posed to the integrity of Treasury operations. Despite Treasury’s denials, DOGE personnel had the ability to modify system coding and were planning to use the Treasury systems to help pause payments by other agencies.
The Treasury Department said that a longtime technology executive was looking at Treasury systems, but it was actually a 25-year-old programmer who quickly resignedafter his racist social media posts went viral. Treasury said that DOGE was conducting a review to improve efficiency, but it was actually trying to use the payment systems to help implement a broad funding freeze. Treasury said that access provided to DOGE was similar to that provided to other consultants or experts, but court documents reveal career staff bending over backwards to accommodate a highly unusual arrangement. And the Department downplayed the risk to the integrity of the Treasury systems while career civil servants responsible for them scrambled to mitigate it.
“Your lack of candor about these events is deeply troubling given the threats to the economy and the public from DOGE’s meddling, and you need to provide a clear,complete, and public accounting of who accessed the systems, what they were doing, and why they were doing it,” wrote the lawmakers.
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