Judge OKs DOGE access to Treasury payment systems
The Treasury Department IT systems that house Americans’ most sensitive financial data can be accessed again by DOGE liaisons to the agency, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Judge Jeannette Vargas of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York lifted the temporary restraining order she issued in February after determining that the Trump administration had properly vetted DOGE staffers at Treasury and put them through required training.
In her initial ruling, Vargas took issue with DOGE’s “chaotic and haphazard” entrance into Bureau of Fiscal Services payment systems, which store 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.
Career Treasury staff “did their best to develop what mitigation strategies they could,” Vargas wrote at the time, but DOGE’s “inexplicable urgency” resulted in a rushed process that skirted standard vetting and training procedures that regular agency staffers who access such data are required to undergo.
Vargas opened the door a crack to DOGE in April, dissolving a preliminary injunction that barred Ryan Wunderly, a liaison to Treasury, from accessing BFS payment systems. Wunderly was ordered to complete training and submit a financial disclosure form before being provided with access again.
In Tuesday’s order, Vargas wrote that the court “determined that Thomas Krause, Linda Whitridge, Samuel Corcos, and Todd Newnam have satisfied the conditions to be carved out of the definition of Restricted Personnel” and that “they shall be permitted access to Treasury Payment Systems on the same terms as Wunderly.” Corcos is now serving as Treasury’s chief information officer.
The Trump administration had asked Vargas to relax the conditions on vetting and training, but the judge declined to do so.
DOGE’s access to BFS payment systems still faces scrutiny from a pair of watchdogs: The Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office have both said they are auditing the digital footprint left in those systems by representatives with the Elon Musk-created tech group.
