Department of the Treasury
subagencies: IRS
One of DOGE’s overarching projects has been to seize control of federal spending, so it makes sense that DOGE would try to infiltrate the Bureau of the Fiscal Service with Department of the Treasury from the start. This is highly-sensitive data to entrust to a few rogue engineers, so there have been a number of high-profile court cases that attempted to forestall and limit DOGE’s access. Unfortunately, DOGE has prevailed and has also increased its access to the highly-sensitive taxpayer data at the IRS in order to support DOGE’s efforts to build a total surveillance system for immigrants.
Positions
| Position | Date | Person |
|---|---|---|
|
Treasury
1/21-2/06
resigned |
appointed Special Advisor (IT&M), Office of the Chief of Staff (NTE 2025-05-25, GS-11/01, $84,601 (for 4 months)) «Abruptly resigned when past racist tweets were reported. I think the pay here is to the NTE date, since his later detail to SSA from DOL is reimbursed at $71k a quarter» | |
|
Treasury
1/23-2/12
Left DOGE |
consultant Senior Advisor for Technology and Modernization, Office of the Chief of Staff (SGE, NTE 2025-04-10, volunteer) | |
|
Treasury
2/13-6/06
Left DOGE |
converted to permanent position (SGE, Schedule C, NTE 2025-07-03, GS-15, $167,603 - $195,200) «Salary range for GS-15 in DC» court doc | |
|
OPM IRS
2/19-4/17
fired |
detail (NTE 2025-06-19) Tax Notes | |
|
Treasury
2/20
|
appointed Politico | |
|
Treasury
2/25
|
unknown (Schedule C, GS-12, $101,401 - $131,826) court doc | |
|
IRS
2/28-c.5/06
|
consultant Senior Advisor for Technology and Modernization (SGE, volunteer) «Start date inferred and likely earlier.» Wash. Post | |
|
Treasury
3/06
|
appointed Senior Advisor (Schedule C, GS-15, $167,603 - $195,200) «Salary range for GS-15 in DC, disclosure» court doc | |
|
ED Treasury
4/09
|
detail to Senior Treasury Advisor «Was he detailed from Education after detailed from DOGE? Or has he been hired by Education since?» | |
|
ED Treasury
4/09
|
detail to Senior Treasury Advisor | |
|
Treasury
4/18
|
appointed Talking Points Memo | |
|
Treasury IRS
4/XX
|
internal xfer Senior Advisor court doc | |
|
IRS
c.5/06
|
promoted to Chief Information Officer «Date is approximate per reports. Will update as new details emerge.» FedScoop |
Systems
| System | Dates | Access |
|---|---|---|
| ASAP |
A payment system that allows recipients to draw down funds from an established bank account for that recipient.
|
|
| PAM DB |
The U.S. government uses the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) to pay all bills, except payments in foreign currency. PAM processed over 1.2 billion payments in FY 2024, valued at over 4.7 trillion dollars.
|
|
| PAM FS |
Where payment files are transmitted from initiating agencies before they are certified and processed by Treasury
|
|
| SPS |
Used by federal government agencies to securely create, certify, and submit payments to the Fiscal Service.
|
Events
| Agency | Date | Event |
|---|---|---|
|
1/08
|
Official:
The leader of the Trump transition team for the Treasury Department sends an email requesting that Thomas Krause be incuded on the “day 1 team, to lead on Fiscal Services modernization efforts.”
|
|
|
1/24
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||
|
1/28
|
Access:
Marko Elez is provided with a laptop from Treasury with with copies of the source code for PAM, SPS, and ASAP in a separate, secure coding environment known as a “secure code repository” or “sandbox.”
|
|
| February 2025 | ||
|
2/04
|
Oversight:
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent writes a letter to Congress about Scott Krause having read-only access but doesn’t mention Marko Elez
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|
|
2/06
|
||
|
2/07
|
Report:
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)
|
|
|
2/10
|
Disruption:
A legal affadavit states a BFS payment was presented to State Department to not process after it was reviewed by DOGE
|
|
|
2/11
|
Access:
A legal affadavit from a Treausry employee states Marko Elez was accidentally given edit access to BFS systems but did not use it
|
|
|
2/16
|
||
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2/17
|
||
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2/18
|
||
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2/19
|
||
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2/20
|
Onboard:
John York, a senior counselor to Bessent, wrote in a sworn statement that Ryan Wunderly would take over Marko Elez’s work at the BFS
|
|
|
2/20
|
||
|
2/20
|
||
|
2/20
|
Access:
Treasury agrees to block Gavin Kliger from the IDRS system and provide him only with anonymized data
|
|
|
2/21
|
||
|
2/25
|
Access:
The Post reports that DOGE is being granted access to only anonymized data from IDRS
|
|
|
2/28
|
Official:
Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, DOGE representatives embedded at the IRS, on Friday asked IRS lawyers to assist in creating an “omnibus” agreement with other federal agencies that would allow a broad swath of federal officials to cross-reference benefits rolls with taxpayer data
|
|
| March 2025 | ||
|
3/01
|
Report:
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) starts an audit of how DOGE handled data at several agencies
|
|
|
3/03
|
Disruption:
The head of HR, Traci DiMartini, for the IRS is placed on administrative leave for refusing to bring in employees over the weekend to officially onboard Sam Corcos
|
|
|
3/13
|
||
|
3/24
|
||
|
3/25
|
Official:
President Trump issues an executive order mandating that all payments flow through Treasury that agencies must modify SORNs to share data with Treasury as “routine use”
|
|
|
3/28
|
Interagency:
Julie Bednar, a senior advisor in human resources at DOI, is pulled into a call with Katrine Trampe and Gavin Kliger calling from IRS who asked to speak to the system owner for FPPS directly
|
|
|
3/28
|
||
| April 2025 | ||
|
4/03
|
Disruption:
Senior technological positions are terminated including director of cybersecurity architecture and implementation, deputy chief information security officer, and acting director of security risk management. Only the CTO was spared.
|
|
|
4/07
|
Legal:
In a 2-1 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a stay against DOGE data access at the Treasury, OPM and Department of Education imposed in the case American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent (D. Maryland 2025)
|
|
|
4/07
|
||
|
4/08
|
||
|
4/09
|
Onboard:
Adam Ramada and Brooks Morgan are part of a cohort of 9 staffers detailed from the Department of Education to the Treasury, under the aegis of supporting federal student aid functions at Treasury.
|
|
|
4/10
|
||
|
4/11
|
Directory:
In a legal filing, the government describes the DOGE team at Treasury of consisting of six people, some previously unknown
|
|
|
4/12
|
Legal:
Judge Vargas rules in New York et al vs. Donald Trump that Ryan Wunderly should be granted access to Treasury systems
|
|
|
4/18
|
Onboard:
A new DOGE staffer (Roland Shen) who works for the payments startup Ramp has reportedly been granted access to BFS systems
|
|
| May 2025 | ||
|
5/07
|
||
|
5/08
|
Disruption:
IRS Input Correction Operation employees working at the Kansas City office receive notifications they must work on Saturdays for 2 weekends in May to handle the growing backlog of returns flagged with errors
|
|
|
5/15
|
Oversight:
The ranking Democratic member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sends a letter requesting that the IRS Inspector General investigate the circumstances of the “hackathon”
|
|
|
5/26
|
||
| June 2025 | ||
|
6/XX
|
Report:
After several DOGE staffers expressed concerns that he should not have access to government information or continue to direct DOGE staff, Steve Davis has reportedly pushed for their firing and calling it an attempted coup. He urged firing and the silent treatment for Sam Corcos and other DOGE staffers when they suggested he no longer had any authority.
|
|
|
6/06
|
Offboard:
Tom Krause resigns his position at Treasury and exits government service, according to an email that he sent to employees at the Cloud Software Group, which he was simultaneously running. He departed Treasury a month before his SGE status would have required him to leave.
|