Amy Gleason
Amy Gleason was suddenly thrusted into the public spotlight on Feb. 18, 2025 when the White House Press Secretary identified her as the Administrator of DOGE. Conveniently, she was on vacation in Mexico at the time, so the press was unable to clarify if she was also blindsided by the news. Since then, she has gamely testified for a few times as the administrator of DOGE, but since early March she has largely resumed working full-time as an official employee within HHS, where she had started work in January 2025 for the US Digital Service. Nobody in DOGE seems to even be pretending anymore that she is running things.
Positions
| Position | Notes |
|---|---|
| DOGE |
Sources
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| HHS |
Sources
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Systems
| System | Notes |
|---|---|
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CALM
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Source
System for tracking CMS acquisitions, contracts, milestones and audits. read access granted by CIO |
Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
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2/XX/25
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Source
Interagency
A whistleblower reports attending a meeting with USDS Administrator Amy Gleason, the SSA CIO Scott Coulter and several other DOGE staffers at the agency. The whistleblower reports that Gleason did not contribute to the meeting and was clearly not directing DOGE activities at the agency.
(fuzz: time is just given as February)
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2/05/25
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Source
Official
According to later sworn testimony from Kendall Lindemann, this is the date that Steve Davis was designated as the decision-maker for DOGE as the senior-most political appointee until Amy Gleason is appointed as acting administratior of DOGE on 2025-02-18. Later news reports suggest Steve Davis continued to remain in charge.
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2/17/25
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Source
Interagency
Joshua Fox emails a few NASA administrators to introduce himself as “one of the attorneys at DOGE” and to also inform them “I just spoke to Scott Coulter about this, but I wanted to let you know that he is planning to go over to SSA tomorrow.” He includes several other DOGE leadership personnel in the email chain. It’s unclear from the message who actually made the decision that Scott Coulter would be detailed to the Social Security Administration.
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2/18/25
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Source
Interagency
Kendall Lindemann contacts the FCC on behalf of DOGE and Amy Gleason to start the process of detailing several DOGE staffers to the agency.
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2/24/25
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Source
Access
Amy Gleason is granted read access to the CMS Acquisition Lifestye Management System (CALM), which tracks CMS aquisitions and contracts.
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2/26/25
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Source
Official
After days of sustained questioning about who the USDS Administrator is, the White House gives the name of Amy Gleason. It is unclear how long she had been in the role. She also conveniently is on a trip to Mexico during the announcement and is thus unreachable.
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3/19/25
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Source
Directory
In another sworn statement, Amy Gleason declares “every member of an agency’s DOGE Team is an employee of the agency or a detailee to the agency.” She does later clarify that some are detailed from USDS but also claims they report to agency heads. She also reports that USDS has approximately 79 directly appointed employees and 10 employees detailed from other agencies.
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3/29/25
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Source
Directory
In response to a discovery request made in AFL-CIO vs. DOL, the government provides an incomplete list of DOGE staff who have worked at HHS.
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3/29/25
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Source
Legal
In a legal filing, the DOJ identifies 4 DOGE staffers - Edward Coristine, Marko Elez, Luke Farritor and Amy Gleason - as present at CMS. It omits the names of several other staffers with access to the CALM system.
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4/01/25
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Source
Report
In a group chat within HHS system, Amy Gleason attempts to distance herself from the mass layoffs caused by DOGE by claiming she is just the USDS administrator only and has nothing to do with how the DOGE teams operate.
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7/15/25
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Source
Legal
In a setback for the Trump administration, an appeals court rules in CREW v. DOGE that the agency must comply with records requests being made by CREW and that the official DOGE administrator Amy Gleason must be made available to testify. This came after CREW modified its initial request to exclude certain communications that the Supreme Court had ruled should be exempted. Those changes were enough to satisfy the appeals court.
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