A group of 21 House Democrats issued a plea today to several Federal agency inspectors general (IG) to probe recent revelations that employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have “gained access to protected government networks and sensitive data” at agencies including the Treasury Department, General Services Administration (GSA), Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
The request came in a Feb. 6 letter to IGs at GSA, Treasury, USAID, OPM, the Education Department, and the Small Business Administration (SBA).
The letter was sent by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, ranking member of Oversight’s Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation subcommittee, and 19 other House Democrats.
The House Democrats said they have “urgent concerns” about reports that DOGE personnel accessed the OPM, GSA, Treasury, and USAID networks, and said they “raise serious questions about the security protocols in place to safeguard sensitive government information and the potential for unauthorized access and misuse by private citizens without requisite clearance or any legitimate reason to access this information.”
“Given the scope of these concerns, we strongly encourage you to coordinate across the inspector general community to address these potential threats to national security,” the lawmakers said.
Noting the Trump administration’s abrupt dismissal of at least 16 major agency IGs last month – including those from Treasury and SBA – the Democratic lawmakers emphasized the vital role that IGs play.
“Offices of Inspectors General are more important than ever,” the lawmakers said. “Congress and the American people rely on you to remain dogged and steadfast in your pursuit of truth without regard to political affiliation.”
“As such, we urge you to fulfill your duties as non-partisan watchdogs, appropriately issue management alerts as relevant, and assess the potential security breaches across the federal government due to Mr. Musk and his teams’ actions,” they said.
The lawmakers also broadly questioned the legal ability of DOGE and Musk to gain access to Federal networks.
“President Trump’s Executive Order renaming the U.S. Digital Service as the U.S. DOGE Service lays out specific parameters within which the ‘DOGE teams’ are to operate,” they said, asserting that “there has been no public transition of the U.S. Digital Service to the new mission, nor has there been a public communication about the appointment of an Administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service.”
“Although Elon Musk appears to have been granted the status of ‘Special Government Employee,’ there is no evidence that he, or any of his associates working under the ‘DOGE team’ moniker are entitled to access our government systems, nor is there any evidence that they have undergone the proper vetting to ensure the security of taxpayer and government data,” the House Democrats told the IGs.
