Democrats open investigation into DOGE access to national security information
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma) asks questions to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as he testifies before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Feb. 11. Warren joined Democrat colleagues Feb. 27 announcing that they had opened an investigation into DOGE data access. The Washington Post / Contributor/Getty Images
Multiple media reports have indicated DOGE has accessed classified or highly sensitive data across the government.
A coalition of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate said Thursday they had opened an investigation into the Department of Government Efficiency and requested billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk answer a series of questions about reports indicating how DOGE has sought to access troves of sensitive national-security data.
Media reports have indicated that the DOGE.gov website posted classified workforce data on the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence community agency that oversees programs and operations tied to the nation’s spying satellites. Other Pentagon and intelligence agency data has been displayed, despite a citation at the bottom of the site saying that its workforce data excludes intelligence agencies and others.
The CIA earlier this month also sent an unclassified email to the White House containing a list of names of employees deemed probationary, meaning they have been hired in the last one to two years and are easier to terminate because they have fewer civil service protections.
In another instance, one DOGE staffer reportedly had “write access” to sensitive Treasury Department data, despite Treasury and White House officials claiming that DOGE workers did not have the ability to rewrite underlying code that facilitates federal payment systems. And, after employees in the National Nuclear Security Administration were fired, the Trump administration reversed that decision, according to multiple reports.
“These incidents — whether due to maliciousness or incompetence — are inexcusable and raise additional questions about DOGE employees’ access to highly sensitive personal and national security information, and what they are doing with it,” wrote the lawmakers, which include Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.
They ask in the letter who oversees cybersecurity at DOGE, what protections are in place, how employees are vetted, how data breaches would be handled and whether more unreported incidents have occurred.
Katie Miller, a DOGE spokesperson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
DOGE is not an official government agency but rather a cost-cutting entity established in the White House seeking to curtail cases of government spending waste. Much of DOGE’s work, besides terminating government employees, has focused on ending contract spending for projects that don’t align with President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.
In an executive order issued Wednesday, Trump directed agency heads to work with DOGE team leads to build centralized tech systems to record all payments issued through each agency contract or grant — as well as provide “written justification” for each payment submitted.