Social Security Administration

A contractor for SSA arranges an introduction for Leland Dudek to meet Steve Davis (fuzz: Date is just given as “mid-December”)

Leland Dudek reaches out to Tiffany Flick, the Associate Director of Budget, Facilities and Security to inform her two DOGE staff would be onboarding. He was a mid-level employee at the time.

Mike Russo officially joins the agency as its new CIO, requests Akash Bobba to join the agency (but he has issues with his background check)

Unidentified employee SSA-01 (Akash Bobba) starts working at the SSA with the title of Expert and an annual salary of $90,025.

After gaining access to the PAM DB system, DOGE members at the Treasury department see what appear to be payments flowing to recipients without Social Security numbers. Other recipients appear to be dead. This triggered Musk accusing SSA of massive fraud. It was later reveled to be DOGE not understanding the data. (fuzz: article just reports this as early Feb; but Musk tweets said he was informed on 2/7)

Elon Musk posts tweets claiming to have discovered sources of “massive fraud” within SSA

Mike Russo summons Leland Dudek to his office and asks him to explain discrepancies cited by Musk. Leland convened a team of dozens of SSA engineers who reviewed data from the Treasury department. They carefully documented fallacies in DOGE’s reasoning in a memo presented to Russo. Mike Russo reportedly declared that DOGE would not trust career civil servants and demanded that Akash Bobba do his own analysis.

Mike Russo, DOGE chief of staff Steve Davis both demand that Akash Bobba be onboarded before midnight.

CIO Mike Russo convenes his own internal informational group in SSA, has conversations with other agencies about data sharing, does not inform acting SSA Director, Michelle King

The incoming SSA head, Frank Bisignano, directs for Mark Steffensen to be onboarded to SSA as an attorney, according to the testimony of a whistleblower

Leland Dudek is placed on administrative leave while under investigation that he committed inappropriate actions to help DOGE

SSA Staff express concern to Acting Commissioner King that Bobba is accessing information remotely and in an insecure location (the OPM)

Frustrated with the questions and concerns about technical issues with the sandbox NUMIDENT data, Mike Russo goes to complain to the chief CIO in the office of the OMB

The acting director of the Social Security Administration, Michelle King, receives an email from the White House that Dudek is now the Acting Commissioner.

Multiple unidentified DOGE staffers start working at SSA on the same day. SSA-02 (Scott Coulter) is detailed from NASA. SSA-07 (Marko Elez) is detailed from the DOL. SSA-10 (Ethan Shaotran) arrives from the GSA, and SSA-05 (Cole Killian) is detailed from DOGE itself.

SSA CIO Mike Russo emails Leland Dudek request access to EDW for several “members of [his] team” for Numident, Master Beneficiary Record (MBR) and Supplemental Security Record (SSR) master records, as well as copies of SSA payment files that SSA transmits to the Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) for payment

Several DOGE staffers at the agency are identified by Social Security Works (a nonprofit advocacy group) as also working at SSA

Unidentfied alias SSA-03 (Aram Moghaddassi) is detailed over from the Department of Labor

Social Security Administration onboards 3 unidentified staffers – SSA-06 (Jon Koval), SSA-04 (Antonio Gracias), and SSA-09 (Payton Rehling) – as volunteers with the title of Expert

One final unidentified DOGE staffer, SSA-08 (Nikhil Rajpal), is detailed to SSA from OPM.

Ethan Shaotran contacts Leland Dudek to inform him that DOGE had identified roughly 3 dozen federal contracts in Maine as “nonessential” and that “we should cancel them” in response to the Maine governor publicly countering abuse from the President over transgender athletes. Two of those contracts are for Social Security services in the State.

Via email, SSA-05 (Cole Killian) at the DOGE team at SSA requests and receives approval from Leland Dudek to run a program to identify unrealistically old people in the SSA database. Scott Coulter is cc’ed on the approval.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) starts an audit of how DOGE handled data at several agencies

In a meeting, Dudek stresses again that DOGE will make mistakes and also admits “I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions,” suggesting DOGE is in charge.

After political blowback causes SSA to reverse its decision to cancel some contracts for the state of Maine, Leland Dudek posts an offical apology claiming it was his direction to cancel the contracts to obscure that the direction had come from DOGE.

In a sworn declaration, Florence Felix-Lawson notes “the SSA DOGE Team currently consists of ten SSA employees: four SSA special government employees (Employees 1, 4, 6, and 9) and six detailees to SSA from other government agencies and offices (Employees 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10)”

Multiple SSA employees told ProPublica, their tech systems seem to be crashing nearly every day, leading to more delays in serving beneficiaries.

Wired reports that 10 DOGE staffers are visible in the Microsoft Teams directory of all employees at SSA

Leland Dudek grants approval for SSA-05 (Cole Killian) to run the proposed tool for modifying the death data records to eliminate implausibly old people. DOGE was convinced these data errors were a massive source of fraud, despite evidence to the contrary from SSA staff.

Leland Dudek approves access of “Employee 9” of the DOGE team at SSA for some additional schemas in PSSNAP

In a ruling for AFL-CIO vs. SSA, Judge Hollander grants a temporary restraining order enjoining DOGE from having any access to SSA systems or installing any software as well as ordering them to delete any data

Leland Dudek threatens to shut down the entire Social Security Administration instead of complying with the order. He reportedly reaches this conclusion on the advice of two unnamed senior DOGE leaders.

Mike Russo is removed from his CIO position by the Trump administration, reportedly for complying quickly with the judicial ruling to remove DOGE access

During his confirmation hearing, Frank Bisignano, the nominee to run the agency, confirms that he had coordinated with Michael Russo but denied a whistleblower report that he had ordered the appointment of DOGE staff there

The Social Security Administration ends a Biden-era rule that limited clawbacks for overpayments to 10% per check (to prior policy of taking entire checks)

In a sworn declaration, Leland Dudek justifies access to PII in SSA records for SSA-01 (Akash Bobba), SSA-05 (Cole Killian), SSA-08 (Nikhil Rajpal) and SSA-09 (Payton Rehling) on the DOGE team. This access is through the SSA’s Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) system. He claims DOGE staff are being granted only the minimum levels of schema access required.

Reports emerge that DOGE is planning to rewrite the entire COBOL codebase for Social Security to Java in months using generative AI

The Deputy CIO for Infrastructure/IT at SSA acknowledges network crashes due to a newly-introduced fraud checking system created by DOGE

As part of an interview on Fox News, Aram Moghaddassi spreads the debunked statistic that 40% of call to SSA are from fraudsters

At a town hall event in Wisconsin, Elon Musk and Antonio Gracias claim to have found fraud in the number of immigrants being granted social security numbers

Alarmed at the viral spread of DOGE’s false claim that 40% of all calls to Social Security are fraud, agency staff at SSA draft a public statement to correct the errors in the claim. They are specifically ordered by Katie Miller not to release it. “The number is 40 percent.”

In an interview on Fox, Antonio Gracias makes misleading claims that DOGE had discovered widespread voting fraud through joining social security data and state voter rolls

Social Security employees received an offer from the human resources department for voluntary reassignments to “mission-critical” front-line roles in call services and hearing offices to replace staff that were eliminated.

DOGE staffers at SSA declare the need for widespread RIFs at the agency, despite a reduction in staffing of 7000 people already and notable degradations in service. Among others, they are looking to cut 800 people from the IT department of 4000.

The Post confirms with multiple source that Social Security’s website has crashed repeatedly in recent weeks, with outages ranging from 20 minutes to an entire day. They speculate this is due to the introduction of an expanded fraud check system created by DOGE that wasn’t tested for scalability before being deployed.

After some qualms about its legality, Leland Dudek signs two memos authorizing sharing data that would allow DHS and ICE to locate immigrants

Aram Moghaddassi adds 6300 names of suspected immigrants to the “death master file” as a way of forcing them to “self-deport” by making it impossible to use financial products. It included 7 minors.

Greg Pearre, a senior career executive overseeing technologists at the SSA, is forced out of his office by security guards after clashing with CIO Scott Coulter and calling his plan to declare immigrants dead illegal and cruel

102 more names of living people are added to the Master Death File at SSA to destroy their ability to participate in socierty

The Social Security Agency is reportedly shifting all its official communications exclusively to X

The Trump Administration files a formal motion to protect the identities of DOGE staff at the agency in filings

Social Security introduces a new AI chatbot to help with general agency tasks but built from general OpenAI models and not trained on SSA data or content

Some immigrants have been forced to prove they aren’t dead after being added to the Master Death File in an attempt to force them to “self-deport.” The White House had claimed nobody was declared dead.

DOGE has reportedly added 10 million records into the Death Master File since March. Some very alive Americans have been declared dead as a result.

Social Security introduces a new AI-based agent for phone calls from 350 field offices in the Southeast and Northeast regions. It frustrates many users attempting to reach an actual person for assistance.

Frank Bisignano is confirmed by the Senate as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration

Many of the Social Security offices are in disarray, unable to buy paper for printers or shred documents because DOGE’s $1 limit on expense cards means that fewer than a dozen staff in SSA are able to authorize office expenses for all 1300 field offices.

An internal report at Social Security analyzes new fraud detection mechanisms that were mandated for phone claims. Reportedly, only 2 out of 110,000 claims made were possible to be fraudulent, but the system has slowed claims processing by 25% and degraded service.

Frank Bisignano is granted permission to remove DOGE staff at his agency that he wants to. “Bisignano parted ways with one DOGE staffer from SSA, who in June moved to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.” The date and person isn’t named, but the CIO replacement at SSA and NASA connection suggest it’s Scott Coulter who was removed, and in early June.

The SSA website takes down for maintenance a page that provided service metrics. When it is restored after serveral weeks, certain metrics that would have shown the impact of DOGE like average phone wait times are no longer provided.

A report in the Times suggests that Mike Russo and Aram Moghaddassi have essentially been acting as joint CIOs at the agency.

In a 6-3 ruling on an emergency application, the Supreme Court rejected an injunction that prevented DOGE from accessing Social Security data. In a setback for privacy advocates, this will allow for SSA to share data with DOGE and other agencies, while the case about the legality of that proceeds.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the new head of SSA, Frank Bisignano, states that “DOGE personnel, including eight engineers, are integral to getting the job done”

Edward Coristine is reportedly sighted at the Woodlawn, MD location of the Social Security Administration alongside Aram Moghaddassi. It is later confirmed that he is now working as a Special Government Employee (SGE) for the agency after he had resigned his position at GSA.

According to a page update on the Federal CIO site, Aram Moghaddassi is named the new CIO of the Social Security Administration, making him the third DOGE-affiliated CIO in a row at the agency. This follows on reports that he had been acting in a co-CIO role with former CIO Mike Russo. He replaces Scott Coulter who was the CIO as recently as late May.

Due to staffing cuts, there is now an average of 1 SSA worker per 1480 benficiaries, or almost triple the ratio in 1967. This is a direct result of DOGE-driven cuts reducing agency staffing by 7000 since January

An analysis by a news organization finds that wait times on calls to Social Security routinely exceed 3 hours, with the system also hanging up on people after 2 hours many times and promising a callback that never arrives. The Social Security website reports the average wait time as 18 minutes.