Senate Democrats are calling on Doug Collins, the new secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), to keep veterans’ data provided by the VA or other Federal agencies out of the hands of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) associates.
Twenty-six Democratic senators – led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee – sent the request via a Feb. 6 letter to Collins.
The letter comes after the Treasury Department gave DOGE access to its payment system, which Sen. Blumenthal said includes the information of veterans and their families. It also comes amid reports of DOGE accessing VA computer systems at the department’s headquarters.
“Veterans risked their lives to defend our country, and they deserve better than to have an unelected billionaire reviewing their medical records, targeting the benefits they have earned, or using their private information for personal gain,” the letter says.
The senators are calling on Collins to “deny and sever” DOGE’s access to any VA or other government system that includes veteran information, “and to require them to immediately and permanently delete any information in their possession.”
The letter points out that the VA has the private information and health records of millions of veterans – including their genetic samples, bank information, disability data, and more.
The agency also stores sensitive veteran casework and the files of whistleblowers who have come forward to report misconduct or concerns about waste, fraud, and abuse.
“Veterans and VA employees entrusted the department with this information with the understanding that it would be kept private and only used to help deliver the highest quality of services to veterans, their families, and survivors,” the letter says.
The lawmakers argue that these actions conflict with several Federal statutes, including the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, the Privacy Act, the E-Government Act of 2002, “and likely several other cyber and national security laws.”
“During your confirmation process, you claimed you would be focused on rooting out corruption and ensuring accountability at VA, and committed to following the laws passed by Congress,” the letter concludes. “We now call on you to respond quickly and comprehensively to these privacy violations by revoking DOGE’s access to VA systems and insisting they permanently remove all VA data collected from their files.”
Separately, another group of Senate Democrats sent a letter to the White House on Friday to request that Musk and his DOGE associates “immediately pause their work within all Federal agencies.”
According to reporting from Nextgov/FCW, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., sent the letter alongside Sens. Blumenthal, Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and John Fetterman, D-Pa.
The senators are requesting that Musk pause his DOGE activities at various Federal agencies until they get answers related to DOGE’s setup, employees, and work.
