Letter From Robert Scott, Committee on Education and Workforce

Dear Mr. Dodaro:

I write with urgency to request that Government Accountability Office (GAO) immediately engage in a review and assessment of the security of information technology (IT) systems at the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services; interventions in those systems by a White House office that has been branded the “Department” of Government Efficiency (DOGE); the legality of such interventions; and potential consequences for children and vulnerable workers.

According to public reports, DOGE has already gained access to the IT system controlling all U.S. government payments—and may have even made changes to the code base, despite representations that their access would be limited to reading the code. It also has been reported that DOGE has since gained access to the internal systems of the Department of Education and their vast collections of data, including very private information about those receiving federal student aid.

DOGE has similarly infiltrated the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), gaining access to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) payment and contracting systems—systems that implicate sensitive health and financial information of millions of seniors and other individuals. DOGE has made further moves into other HHS agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and will not stop there.

This is a constitutional emergency. Insofar as the Inspectors General of the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services have been fired by President Trump, there is now a void of oversight for a very young and inexperienced team and their leader, the world’s richest man, who operates with “autonomy ‘almost no one can control,’” as they gain dangerously broad powers. The nation needs answers immediately about the scope of those powers; any laws, regulations, or other policies regarding access to these data and systems which may be implicated by DOGE’s infiltration; and the integrity of government programs on which schoolchildren and working families depend for their lives and livelihoods.