Lambert here: Why say “shared” when you can say “exfiltrated”? Or “stole.”
Employees with the Department of Government Efficiency who were detailed to the Social Security Administration last March shared sensitive data through a nonsecure third party server, in violation of agency security policies, the Justice Department disclosed in a court filing.
[T]he disclosure about the third-party server confirms concerns among career government employees and data security experts that DOGE’s chaotic access to sensitive government data risks sharing this data broadly and without knowing what data was exposed or who has seen it. Last August, the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, shortly before resigning, filed a whistle-blower complaint over DOGE employees’ activities, saying they had shared a crucial database on a private server.
The Justice Department’s filing addresses the period last March at the height of the conflict between career Social Security officials and DOGE over the sharing of sensitive information.
In its corrections filing, the Justice Department also disclosed that a political advocacy group contacted two members of the DOGE Social Security team, asking for an analysis of state voter rolls the advocacy group obtained. The group was not identified in the court filing, but the Justice Department said the group’s goal was “to find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain states.”
One of the DOGE employees signed an agreement with the advocacy group, which the Social Security Administration appeared to learn through a review of emails. The Justice Department did not provide details about what came of the agreement and whether sensitive data was shared inappropriately.
Lambert here: If they reviewed the emails, then they have the attachments. So where is this “voter agreement”?
Federal lawyers referred the two DOGE employees to the Office of Special Counsel for a potential violation of the Hatch Act….
Joe Spielberger, the senior policy counsel at a nonpartisan watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, said it was a good sign that the Trump administration would make such a referral. But, he said, the corrections filing “goes way beyond potential Hatch Act violations, to say the least.”
Add new comment