Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts sent a letter on Monday to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demanding answers for why the so-called Department of Government Efficiency was granted access to the federal payments system, giving Elon Musk and his team a powerful tool that could be used to track and potentially limit government spending.
The letter is a sign of mounting outrage among Democrats over the unorthodox efforts that the Trump administration and Mr. Musk are preparing to take control of how congressionally approved funds are spent. The questions come after a career civil servant named David Lebryk abruptly resigned on Friday after requests to grant Mr. Musk’s lieutenants access to Treasury’s payment system.
“It is extraordinarily dangerous to meddle with the critical systems that process trillions of dollars of transactions each year, are essential to preventing a default on federal debt, and ensure that tens of millions of Americans receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits,” wrote Ms. Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.
The senator asked Mr. Bessent to explain what Treasury systems were made accessible to staff affiliated with Mr. Musk’s efficiency department, what they intended to do with the data and what safeguards were in place to protect Americans’ private information. She also raised concerns about the influence of Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man.
“I am alarmed that as one of your first acts as secretary, you appear to have handed over a highly sensitive system responsible for millions of Americans’ private data — and a key function of government — to an unelected billionaire and an unknown number of his unqualified flunkies,” wrote Ms. Warren, who also sits on the Senate Finance Committee.
The Musk allies who have been granted access to the payment system were made Treasury employees, passed government background checks and obtained the necessary security clearances, according to two people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal arrangements. While their access was approved, the Musk representatives have yet to gain operational abilities and no government payments have been blocked, the people said.
Mr. Musk on Sunday accused career Treasury officials of “breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress.”
The misleading accusation, which he lobbed without evidence on his social media platform, X, is the only official explanation that the Trump administration has provided about its interest in scrutinizing the Treasury Department’s payment system. The system is typically run by civil servants at Treasury, which carries out payments submitted by agencies across the government and disbursed more than $5 trillion in the 2023 fiscal year.
The Treasury Department has declined to comment about the matter, which has dominated Mr. Bessent’s first week in the job.
Current and former Treasury officials have been frustrated by the unceremonious departure of Mr. Lebryk and the public attacks on the credibility of the department.
“Every Secretary of the Treasury I worked for valued, defended and respected the Treasury and its staff,” Mark Sobel, who served at the department for nearly four decades, wrote on social media. “Less that one week in, Scott Bessent has shown he won’t stand up for the institution and its workers.”
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