Sen. Peters pushes for new probe of DOGE’s Social Security Administration data dives

The top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is demanding a full, independent investigation into new reports of DOGE representatives improperly accessing and transferring Social Security Administration data.

In a press release sent Tuesday, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said “new disclosures revealed DOGE personnel may have broken federal law and exposed Americans’ most sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers.” 

The release came shortly after the Washington Post reported that an SSA whistleblower said a former DOGE engineer put sensitive information from two agency databases — Numident and the Master Death File — on a thumb drive and planned to share that data with his private-sector employer.

Democracy Forward, which represents several labor groups in a lawsuit against SSA over DOGE’s “unprecedented data grab,” filed a notice of factual development Tuesday in response to the Post’s reporting. The new court filing said the revelations in the article “are consistent with the substantial issues … of disclosures beyond SSA and the federal government as a whole and the ongoing risk of further disclosures of such uncontrolled data.” 

“They also squarely disprove any claim that the scope of SSA DOGE Team access to SSA data was carefully proscribed, or that it was permitted only for any of the alleged permissible purposes Defendants have alleged,” the filing states. “And the disclosures also eviscerate any claims Defendants have made that the SSA DOGE Team did not illicitly distribute PII from SSA systems.”

Peters’ press release references the Post’s story, but also highlights a January court filing from the Department of Justice that disclosed the use of an unapproved third-party server and communication between DOGE and an advocacy group seeking “evidence of voter fraud.” Charles Borges, the SSA’s former chief data officer, said in an August 2025 whistleblower complaint that DOGE associates uploaded Numident data to a “vulnerable” custom cloud environment.

Included in Peters’ release were letters to SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano and Michelle Anderson, SSA’s assistant inspector general for audit, both of which were dated Feb. 25. Peters, ranking member of the Senate’s HSGAC panel, requested records, risk assessments, communications and interviews connected to DOGE’s work at SSA.

The Michigan Democrat had some choice words for Anderson, whom he asked to initiate a “comprehensive investigation” into whether DOGE broke federal law regarding data security and privacy, as well as whether the personal data of Americans was “manipulated, leaked, or stolen.”

“As the official performing the functions and duties of the SSA Inspector General, you have a responsibility to investigate potential security violations involving sensitive agency data that may threaten the administration of agency programs,” Peters wrote to Anderson. “I have serious concerns about your oversight work, given that you have so far failed to initiate meaningful oversight of the current administration this year, and that a request from Sen. Peters to meet with you has so far gone unanswered.

“Without a thorough, independent investigation, I may never know whether SSA data was manipulated, leaked, or stolen because of the opaque nature of DOGE operations,” Peters continued. “It is your job to investigate and ensure this critical data is safe.”

In his letter to Bisignano — currently pulling double-duty as the IRS’s CEO — Peters requested responses to 14 questions and a briefing on the subject before April 1. Some of the information Peters seeks includes a copy of the “voter data agreement” DOGE signed with a political advocacy group and a full accounting of DOGE’s Numident activities. Peters wants communications from DOGE representatives John Solly, Edward Coristine, Aram Moghaddassi, and Mike Russo.

“While you have provided some additional information to Congress regarding whistleblower disclosures and DOGE oversight, you have provided incomplete or misleading answers to questions in writing and notably have not released information needed to ensure critical data is no longer at risk,” Peters wrote to Bisignano. 

“Given the gravity of the admissions in the court filing,” he continued, “as well as prior whistleblower disclosures, I call on you to immediately halt all DOGE work and data access at SSA; conduct a thorough review of the security of SSA datasets in any cloud environment, including Cloudflare; and track down any data that was inappropriately shared outside the agency by DOGE.”