Wondering What Doge Is Up To? Check The Court Docs.

Elon Musk’s operation to break the federal bureaucracy has been both lightning quick and shrouded in darkness.

But federal courts, which have fielded more than a dozen lawsuits from terrified government employees and recipients of public funds, have begun pulling back the curtain on the opaque “Department of Government Efficiency.”

Judges, deciding whether to order an abrupt halt to DOGE’s operations, have demanded explanations from the Musk associates tasked with rifling through and revising sensitive government databases. And those operatives’ own words, though heavily lawyered and coordinated by the Justice Department, have nevertheless revealed key details about the aggressive project.

Here are some insights, gleaned from 13 written statements filed under oath by Musk’s allies — and the career federal officials working closest with them.

Teams vary in size and scope

DOGE itself is an amorphous project housed in Trump’s White House. But its work has been carried out by teams deployed to federal departments. Those teams include a mix of Musk associates and federal officials detailed to assist them. They ostensibly work for cabinet secretaries but report back to Musk.

Some examples:

— The Education Department’s DOGE team is six people: two DOGE employees, two people from within the department and two people detailed from other federal agencies. Adam Ramada, one of the DOGE employees, told a court on Feb. 16 that he recently learned one of the six people hadn’t completed required ethics training. The department’s CIO, Thomas Flagg, described details of the DOGE team’s onboarding as well.

— Ramada is also coordinating efforts at the Department of Labor, where a team of three DOGE officials detailed from the White House is operating.

— There are six members of the DOGE team at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one from the White House and five detailed from other federal agencies.

— The Treasury Department’s DOGE team is one man: Thomas Krause, the CEO of a software company tasked with overhauling the massive system of about $5 trillion in annual federal transactions. His partner in that effort, software engineer Marko Elez, resigned after reporters discovered racist social media posts. Career officials Vona Robinson and Michael Wenzler described more details about their access to Treasury systems. But the department is looking to add new DOGE allies to the effort, including Ryan Wunderly, who is set to replace Elez. But he can’t start right away because of a court order barring new DOGE figures from accessing Treasury systems.

— Treasury is also currently working to onboard two “DOGE team” members to manage efforts at the IRS.

— The Department of Health and Human Services’ DOGE team has three people — one DOGE official, one HHS employee and one employee detailed from another agency.

Career officials are working to “mitigate risks” posed by DOGE

In several sworn statements to the courts, career officials described extraordinary steps to protect their closely guarded systems from being compromised by DOGE — and they openly acknowledged the risks posed by granting the teams access to databases of federal transactions, student borrowers’ tax information and consumer complaints about banks.

The organizations and employees suing them say these safeguards fall short and are merely an effort to paper over dangerous exposure of sensitive data to people who aren’t vetted or trained to access it. They describe “many open questions and contradictions” offered by DOGE detailees and their allies, and they found former agency officials to buttress their concerns.

“To the best of my knowledge, no employee, contractor, or detailee at the CFPB has ever been granted blanket access to all unclassified systems maintained by the bureau,” Erie Meyer, the CFPB’s chief technologist and senior adviser to the director until earlier this month, said in a statement accompanying a lawsuit brought by government employees.

But even the most favorable explanations offered by the government demonstrate extreme concern about granting unprecedented access to the DOGE team.

Some examples:

— At Treasury, career official Joseph Gioeli said the department took extensive measures to safeguard its database of $5 trillion in federal transactions, which include payouts to Social Security and other massive government programs. The measures included “cybersecurity tools” to monitor Elez’s work “at all times” and “continuously log his activity.” Elez’s laptop was configured to monitor and block websites and detect if he tried to transmit data to external systems. Officials have acknowledged that before his resignation, Elez was briefly and inadvertently given the ability to alter the payment system. They say their “forensic” review of the matter is ongoing. Krause and Elez, Gioeli said, agreed that at the end of their project, “any copies of Treasury information made would be properly destroyed.” And this week, Treasury and the White House struck an agreement to restrict DOGE’s access to sensitive IRS information.

— Adam Martinez, the chief operating officer at CFPB, indicated in a sworn statement on Feb. 13 that the six DOGE employees assigned to the bureau have signed nondisclosure agreements and completed cybersecurity training. One of the employees was given access to Treasury systems that handle CFPB data related to “human capital, finance and procurement.” Martinez said that there are written agreements between CFPB and the employees from other agencies assisting DOGE with their work at the bureau.

— Ramada has said the six-person team at the Department of Education may soon access tax information of student loan recipients to conduct “analyses to estimate costs related to student loan repayment plans, awards, or debt discharges.” In a second declaration submitted Sunday, he said he recently learned one of the six had not yet completed required ethics training.

— Ricky Kryger, a career Department of Labor civil servant, indicated in his sworn statement on Feb. 13that DOL will supervise the work of three DOGE detailees conducting a “budget review” to ensure they “protect the integrity” of Labor’s data systems. Among the protective measures: DOGE allies must provide 24 hours’ notice before accessing any of the department’s IT systems in order to “ascertain and mitigate any conflicts of interest,” ensure appropriate security is in place and advise of any legal restrictions. “To access without proper approvals would subject the individual to potential criminal prosecution,” he added.

— Garey Rice, the principal deputy assistant secretary for operations at HHS, said in a sworn statement on Feb. 13 that DOGE employees at HHS are tasked with auditing HHS “information technology and data systems related to HHS financial management systems.” Their access to HHS data, he said, must be “for a legitimate purpose, including but not limited to IT modernization, the facilitation of HHS operations, and the improvement of Government efficiency.” They must also “destroy or erase copied HHS data or information when no longer needed for official purposes.”