An intelligence team within the U.S. Treasury Department said Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn Department of Government Efficiency represents “the single greatest insider threat risk” they have ever faced, in an email sent to staffers this week.
That email, in which the agency’s threat intelligence team recommends suspending all access to members of DOGE, was obtained by Wired. News of the team’s feelings on the seemingly widespread incursions into sensitive data by Elon Musk’s youth brigade came after DOGE had its access to Bureau of the Fiscal Service records significantly curtailed by a federal judge.
“There is ongoing litigation, congressional legislation, and widespread protests relating to DOGE’s access to Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” the email reads, per the tech-focused outlet. “If DOGE members have any access to payment systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems.”
Noting reports of DOGE staff locking out civil servants after gaining access to sensitive data, the email goes on to say that members of DOGE should be monitored as a threat to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
“There is reporting at other federal agencies indicating that DOGE members have performed unauthorized changes and locked civil servants out of the sensitive systems they gained access to,” the email reportedly says. “We further recommend that DOGE members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked. Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even ‘read-only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”
Two members of DOGE were granted read-only access to Treasury files by the aforementioned judge’s order. One of those two, 25-year-old Marko Elez, resigned from their position within the agency after the Wall Street Journal uncovered a deleted social media account where Elez shared racist posts. Prior to his resignation, Elez had access to payment systems that handled over $4.7 trillion in federal payments in the last fiscal year.
