Trump accuses Biden’s government of massive fraud, labor unions fight back
Trump claims D.O.G.E has uncovered fake government contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars. “The whole thing’s a scam,” he said. Elon’s agency is now investigating what he calls shocking levels of fraud and incompetence in federal financial programs.
Meanwhile, labor unions are suing the SSA to block D.O.G.E from accessing Social Security data. The lawsuit, filed in a Maryland federal court by Democracy Forward, seeks an emergency order to prevent Elon’s team from viewing the personal data of millions of Americans.
“A disregard for our careful privacy systems and processes now threatens the security of the data SSA houses about millions of Americans,” wrote Tiffany Flick, a former senior SSA official, in her affidavit.
Lawyer Karianne Jones, representing unions and a retiree group, said, “Essentially what you have is D.O.G.E just swooping in and bullying their way into access to millions of Americans’ private data. They cannot explain why they want this data. They can’t really tell you what data they want. They just want everything. They want the source code, and they want to do it without any restrictions.”
The SSA did not respond to requests for comment. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal battles against D.O.G.E, which has been hit with nearly two dozen lawsuits over its cost-cutting efforts. Judges have raised concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding its operations, but not all courts have ruled against the agency.
On Friday, a federal judge in Washington refused to block DOGE employees from accessing Treasury systems containing sensitive personal data for millions of people. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did acknowledge privacy concerns about that work. DOGE is still limited by a different court order in New York.
A February agreement between the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the IRS allows a D.O.G.E employee, Gavin Kliger, to access IRS systems but bars him from retrieving taxpayers’ personal information.
The Trump administration is moving forward with widespread job cuts across government agencies, including SSA, as was shared by Elon himself on X. More than 10% of the Social Security workforce faces layoffs, and dozens of SSA offices could be shut down nationwide, said D.O.G.E’s X.
The administration claims these cuts are necessary to reduce waste and fraud, while critics argue that eliminating staff makes it harder to detect errors—the same kind that led to $333 million in fraudulent loans.
