National Labor Relations Board watchdog investigating DOGE, potential data breach
The National Labor Relations Board’s inspector general is conducting an investigation into the Department of Government Efficiency’s work at the agency.
In April, an IT staffer named Daniel Berulis filed an official whistleblower disclosure with Congress highlighting concerns over DOGE’s practices at the NLRB and data that may have been removed from the agency. In response to the disclosure, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, requested an investigation in a letter to Luiz A. Santos, acting inspector general of the Labor Department, and Ruth Blevins, inspector general at the NLRB.
Timothy Bearese, an attorney at the NLRB currently serving as its acting director of congressional and public affairs, told FedScoop that the agency has no comment but “can confirm that the OIG is conducting an investigation, as requested by Ranking Member Connolly.” Back In April, Bearese told NPR that the NLRB had not granted DOGE access to agency systems. At that time, he also said that there had been a past investigation based on Berulis’ concerns that “determined that no breach of agency systems occurred.”
A spokesperson for House Oversight Committee Democrats told FedScoop on Thursday that “there are multiple investigations into Elon Musk’s violations of sensitive investigatory information at the NLRB.”
“Committee Democrats can confirm that NLRB’s Office of Inspector General, following a request from the Committee, has launched a formal investigation related to the Committee’s concerns about whistleblower allegations against DOGE’s technological malfeasance at the NLRB,” the spokesperson continued. “Committee Democrats are leading the charge to force DOGE’s dark dealings out of the shadows — and it’s working.”
A person who answered the phone at the NLRB’s IG office Thursday told FedScoop that no one was available to comment on the investigation that day.
In his letter to the inspectors general in April, Connolly wrote that “President Trump has repeatedly stated that DOGE is led by Elon Musk, and that Mr. Musk’s power at DOGE is expansive. Mr. Musk’s companies face a series of enforcement actions from NLRB and DOL, creating an inherent conflict of interest for him to direct any work at either agency — let alone benefit from stolen nonpublic information.”
He continued: “As ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I ask that you report to Congress the nature of the work the DOGE team has performed at NLRB and DOL, including any and all attempts to exfiltrate data and any attempts to cover up their activities.”
The original disclosure from Berulis, the NLRB IT staffer, had requested that Congress and law enforcement initiate an investigation “into the cybersecurity breach and data exfiltration at NLRB and any other agencies where DOGE has accessed internal systems.”
In April, FedScoop filed a series of public records requests with the NLRB for documents related to the events outlined in the disclosure. Those requests were denied in full Wednesday, based on an exemption that allows agencies to withhold records that are “included in an open investigatory file where disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings.”
According to the rejection letter, the NLRB’s Office of the Chief Information Officer “confirmed that the Agency has an active, ongoing investigation into the issues” discussed in both the whistleblower disclosure and the NPR article.
It is not clear — and the NLRB did not clarify — if the investigation being conducted by the OIG is the same or separate from the investigation cited in the letter.
