Musk, DOGE access to Treasury systems targeted in House Democrats’ bill

More than 140 House Democrats are behind a new bill that would bar “unlawful access” to payment systems within the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service, a response to infiltrations by DOGE liaisons into systems containing the personal and financial information of millions of Americans.

The Taxpayer Data Protection Act from Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., and 141 of her Democratic colleagues would prohibit the Treasury secretary from granting administrative control, use or access to any agency payment system or public money receipt, with exceptions given to eligible department officials, employees or contractors.

The legislation comes following reports that a pair of DOGE-connected “special government employees” — one who has since departed due to the revelation of racist social media posts — were granted access to Bureau of Fiscal Service systems by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. 

A coalition of union groups sued to cut off DOGE’s access to the systems, which reportedly contain the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, birth places, home addresses and telephone numbers, email addresses, and bank account information of Americans who have transacted with the federal government. A federal judge ruled Thursday that the DOGE surrogates could be granted “read-only” access to Bureau of Fiscal Service systems “as needed for the performance” of their respective duties.

Stevens, who served as chief of staff on an Obama administration auto rescue task force that reported to the Treasury Department, said in a statement that her time in that position made her “intimately familiar” with the agency’s critical role in the economy and in “securing the full faith and credit of our nation.” Elon Musk and any other “unelected billionaire with zero government experience,” she said, should be nowhere near Americans’ private data.

“It begs the question, what exactly is [Musk] trying to accomplish? Research on his opponents? Stopping payments on Americans’ earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare?” Stevens said. “This bill makes crystal clear the level of experience and security training those granted access to our nation’s bill paying system must have and will stop unlawful incursions and protect the American people.”

The bill also calls on the inspector general of the Treasury to investigate and submit a report to Congress on any unauthorized uses of agency payment systems. The report should include detailed descriptions of any instances of stopped payments during the period of unauthorized use, as well as a risk assessment gauging threats to privacy, national security or cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity and government experts have expressed grave concerns about the access granted to DOGE, with some comparing the Musk-directed actions to an ongoing data breach.

The Treasury-specific effort from House Democrats follows similar calls in the upper chamber to cut off DOGE access to agency IT systems; the Office of Personnel Management, the Education Department and USAID are among the others where Musk’s underlings have reportedly been burrowing.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and five of his fellow Senate Democrats sent a letter Friday to the White House, asking President Donald Trump’s chief of staff and counsel to have DOGE “immediately pause their work within all federal agencies.” Nextgov first reported the news of that letter.