WATCH: Sen. Reed says DOGE doesn’t want efficient government, it wants to weaken government, blackout oversight & serve Trump and Musk’s interests at the expense of taxpayers

WASHINGTON, DC – Who is in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)?  What is the agency up to?  Who is it benefitting?  Who is it hurting?  Is DOGE breaking the law?

These are all simple, reasonable questions -- ones that Congress and courts have been asking and ones that the Trump Administration has dodged since January 20, when the president signed an Executive Order that changed the name of the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), a small, technology-based office, and morphed it into the vastly more expansive DOGE with long tentacles extending into the operations of virtually every federal department, agency, and office.

Today, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Subcommittee, which oversees funding for the U.S. Treasury Department, the White House, and other key federal agencies and offices, took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to call out DOGE for its attempted power grab, incompetence, and lack of transparency.

“Mr. Musk and DOGE have rammed their way into agencies -- not to make smart decisions, not to improve efficiency, not to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, but to disrupt, denigrate and demoralize.  And along the way, DOGE has made incredible blunders, such as firing and then scrambling to rehire employees at the Nation Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).  Let me repeat that – Mr. Musk and his minions fired the people who keep nuclear weapons safe,” said Senator Reed. 

Senator Reed continued.  “Musk and his unvetted coders made the CIA send an unclassified email with the names of its recent hires.  And cut staff from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Weather Service who prevent and warn every American of travel and weather dangers.  These actions don’t just reflect incredible incompetence -- they are dangerous.  They undermine national security and increase risks for American citizens.  In any other setting, blunders like these would be grounds for firing.  But Musk and DOGE operate with arrogance, impunity, and zero transparency.”

Regarding the question of who is in charge of DOGE, Donald Trump told a Miami audience of investors and corporate executives on February 20: “I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge.” Trump made that statement just days after his Administration’s lawyers told federal courts that Mr. Musk isn’t even a part of the federal bureaucracy.

In terms of what the agency is up to, no one in the Trump Administration has been able to fully say, but Mr. Musk has repeatedly announced broad changes in federal policy well beyond the purview of “modernizing federal technology,” which was the guise Trump used to establish DOGE.  And DOGE has taken unprecedented and illegal actions against federal workers, firing thousands at a time with little planning and even less justification.  DOGE’s mass-firings and unchecked actions are proving to be harmful to both the federal workforce and the broader economy.

Reed noted that members of the Appropriations Committee typically work together on a bipartisan basis to seek information and conduct oversight in order to ensure that federal dollars are spent in accordance with the laws passed by Congress. 

“But now, without authorization from Congress, DOGE is recklessly slashing its way through virtually every federal agency, from the Office of Personnel Management to Treasury to HUD, State, USAID, to the Department of Defense and more,” said Reed.  “It is vital that we understand what DOGE is and isn’t.  While Elon Musk tells the American People that DOGE is ‘maximally transparent,’ it is not.”

Reed pointed out the American people still do not have answers to fundamental questions like:

•           What is the scope of DOGE’s work?

•           How many people work at DOGE? And who are they?

•           Do they also hold jobs outside the Federal government?

•           What are their financial holdings and potential conflicts of interest?

•           Do they have allegiances to foreign governments?

•           Will it respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act?

•           What are its plans to reform agencies?

•           Who is DOGE firing and why?

During his floor speech, Reed noted that when DOGE does publicly share some limited information, it is frequently wrong.  As the New York Times reported, five of DOGE’s biggest claimed savings were deleted from its website because they were inaccurate.  This includes:

•           A cancelled USAID contract for $650 million that was counted three times;

•           A cancelled Social Security contract was erroneously listed as being worth $232 million instead of $560,000; and

•           A cancelled ICE contract was listed as saving $8 BILLION instead of $8 million.

“If you’re going to name something the Department of Government Efficiency, don’t you owe it to the taxpayers to actually do a good job?” Reed asked.

On top of having zero accountability, DOGE’s legal authority to operate is dubious.

“DOGE is now using the hollowed shell of USDS to illegally undo the American federal government, moving from agency-to-agency cutting congressionally appropriated federal spending, priorities, and even dismantling entire agencies.  The bottom line is that DOGE is without congressional authorization and without directed funding from Congress,” said Reed.  “Based on press reports, it appears to be populated by a mixture of unelected billionaires, tech executives,  and un-vetted, unexperienced people,  including an individual who was found to have posted racist tweets. This gang is being granted access to Americans’ most sensitive data like your bank accounts, your Social Security accounts, and it would seem, a host of classified intelligence.  How are they using this information?  How are they protecting this information from our enemies? Is it being shared with outside entities?” Reed asked.

Reed concluded: “Every single day that passes without transparency and Congressional access to information about DOGE’s funding, staffing, and scope of work is a moment too long. With the current Continuing Resolution due to expire on March 14th, we have big decisions to make. My hope is that these decisions can be made on a bipartisan basis informed by the facts. But we cannot responsibly fund the government if we do not understand how DOGE has infiltrated it and made it less efficient and responsive to the taxpayers.”