As beforehand reported, a federal choose on Thursday barred DOGE from accessing social safety techniques.
Earlier this week US District Decide Ellen Hollander, an Obama appointee, stated DOGE’s employees are on a “fishing expedition.”
“The DOGE Staff is basically engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, looking for a fraud epidemic, primarily based on little greater than suspicion. It has launched a seek for the proverbial needle within the haystack, with none concrete data that the needle is definitely within the haystack,” Decide Hollander wrote.
Far-left organizations like AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Lecturers and different plaintiffs sued the Social Safety Administration, Elon Musk, DOGE and different Trump advisors.
The choose sided with the plaintiffs and stated DOGE is probably going violating privateness legal guidelines with entry to social safety numbers and different private data.
A media firestorm erupted on Friday after Appearing Social Safety commissioner Leland Dudek instructed The Washington Post in an interview that he’ll seemingly file an affidavit asking Decide Hollander to make clear her ruling, calling the language “ambiguous,” “overly broad,” and “weirdly written.”
“Every thing on this company is PII,” Dudek instructed The Submit. “Until I get clarification, I’ll simply begin to shut it down. I don’t have a lot of a selection right here.”
Dudek’s feedback prompted Judge Hollander to issue a letter clarifying her language.
“The Court docket is conscious of a number of information experiences claiming that Appearing Social Safety Commissioner Dudek believes that just about all staff of SSA fall inside the scope of the Order, together with his “IT Employees” and his “anti-fraud workforce.” And, in accordance with the information experiences, Mr. Dudek apparently believes he’s required to terminate their entry to SSA’s IT techniques, to be able to adjust to the Order,” Decide Hollander wrote in a letter on Friday.
The choose continued, “Such assertions in regards to the scope of the Order are inaccurate. Worker of SSA who aren’t concerned with the DOGE Staff or within the work of the DOGE Staff aren’t topic to the Order. A DOGE Affiliate is outlined within the Order, inter alia, as an individual engaged on or implementing the DOGE agenda. Furthermore, any suggestion that the Order might require the delay or suspension of profit funds is wrong.”
Later Friday, Decide Hollander issued a second letter warning Dudek to not shut down all operations.
Dudek by no means threatened to shut down the Social Safety Administration. He was reacting to Decide Hollander’s TRO.
“It continues to return to my consideration that Appearing Commissioner Dudek persists in making threats about shutting down operations on the Social Safety Administration, claiming that the TRO that I issued on this case on March 20, 2025 applies to virtually all SSA staff,” the choose wrote. “As I said in my letter to counsel of March 21, 2025, the assertion that the TRO applies to all SSA staff is patently false.”
JUST IN: Decide Hollander has issued a *second* letter right now warning Social Safety appearing commissioner Dudek to not shut down all operations over her order barring DOGE’s entry to delicate techniques. https://t.co/DDhF3MU3Jj pic.twitter.com/bbG6Szr2I3
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 22, 2025
