The Wreckers
From the start, DOGE has moved aggressively across the federal government to shutter agencies, cancel spending and seize data for itself. To do this, they have relied on a specific type of person that I call “Wreckers” - usually young and male, from a technical background, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done quickly. Scratch the surface of any horror story about DOGE’s conduct and you’ll usually find a wrecker at the core.
The DOGE Teams
In the January 20th Executive Order “Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’” that established DOGE partially by renaming the US Digital Service, there was a section that described the formation and structure of DOGE teams that would operate at each federal agency
(c) DOGE Teams. In consultation with USDS, each Agency Head shall establish within their respective Agencies a DOGE Team of at least four employees, which may include Special Government Employees, hired or assigned within thirty days of the date of this Order. Agency Heads shall select the DOGE Team members in consultation with the USDS Administrator. Each DOGE Team will typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney. Agency Heads shall ensure that DOGE Team Leads coordinate their work with USDS and advise their respective Agency Heads on implementing the President’s DOGE Agenda.
In this executive order, the DOGE teams were simply tasked with the vague goal of “IT Modernization” to make them seem like a continuation of the work that USDS had already been doing. However, what the DOGE Teams were actually there to do was to implement the “President’s DOGE agenda.” At first, this was left purposefully vague and undefined, but a flurry of various executive orders have made the goals of DOGE more clear.
Home Bases
For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, DOGE chose to distribute its staff across three different starting agencies as home bases rather than basing them entirely out of USDS/DOGE and detailing them from there. One possibility is that DOGE staff were involved with early work to seize control of centralized services and databases at both the GSA and OPM, so it made sense to start them there. One of the first moves of DOGE at both GSA and OPM was to create guarded and sealed enclaves where they could work and even live in, away from scrutiny. Perhaps, it simply was a matter of the DOGE headquarters at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building not being large enough to install sofas and bunks for all.
For a list of all the details that DOGE has used, see the Devils in the Details page.
Since the beginning of March, DOGE has started to move some of its detailed staff to other agencies. For instance, Amy Gleason was appointed at HHS and Jordan Wick at CFPB on March 5th. This was a tactical move in response to TKTK
USDS/DOGE
Most of the DOGE staff within the DOGE agency also called the US DOGE Service and often also referred to as the EOP (for Executive Office of the President) is leadership and support for activities across the government. However, a few of the early DOGE wreckers were hired in that agency, possibly through practices related to the USDS.
| Agency | Name | Age | Start | Skill | Detailed To |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOGE | Cole Killian | 1/20 | EPA, DOL, SSA | ||
| DOGE | Jordan Wick | c.1/20 | CFPB, DOL, Ed., FCC, USDA, SBA | ||
| DOGE | Adam Ramada | 1/23 | Ed., DOE, DOL, Treas., FDIC | ||
| DOGE | Stephanie Holmes | c.2/01 | DOI | ||
| DOGE | Alexandra Beynon | c.2/04 | Ed. | ||
| DOGE | Joshua Fox | 2/XX | MCC, NOAA, USDA, EOP | ||
| DOGE | Adam Hoffman | c.3/19 | DOJ | ||
| DOGE | Emily Bryant | 3/XX | GSA, FTC |
Since the beginning of March, DOGE has been moving staff to work within agencies themselves, a move at least in part designed to allow the government to evade expedited discovery in the AFL-CIO v. DOL case. For instance, Jordan Wick became an employee of the CFPB on March 4th, the same day that Amy Gleason and Brad Smith officially onboarded at HHS.
Office of Personnel Management
Many of the early DOGE hires were formally appointed at the Office of Personnel Management. Some technical staff at OPM were supporting the
| Agency | Name | Age | Start | Skill | Detailed To |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OPM | Akash Bobba | 1/20 | Ed., SSA, USDA, SBA | ||
| OPM | Gavin Kliger | 1/20 | USAID, USDA, CFPB, IRS, USAGM, FTC, DHS, TSA, GSA | ||
| OPM | Nikhil Rajpal | 1/24 | NOAA, CFPB, SSA | ||
| OPM | Justin Monroe | 1/28 | FBI | ||
| OPM | Christopher Stanley | 1/28 | FHFA, DOJ | ||
| OPM | Jacob Altik | 1/24 | USADF, FCC | ||
| OPM | Joe Gebbia | 2/18 | NDS | ||
| OPM | Tarak Makecha | 2/28 | USAGM, FCC, FBI |
General Services Administration
The GSA is an agency that provides shared services and procurement support to other federal agencies. Early on, DOGE focused on using the GSA to force cost reductions across government - e.g., through cancelling building leases or restricting the use of purchase cards - but GSA has also been the home base for a growing number of wreckers, with many recent hires starting there.
| Agency | Name | Age | Start | Skill | Detailed To |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GSA | Edward Coristine | 1/20 | OPM, USAID, SBA, DHS, FEMA, State, TSA, USCIS, CISA, Ed., HHS, CMS, SSA, NDS | ||
| GSA | Luke Farritor | 1/20 | HHS, USAID, CDC, CMS, DOE, CFPB, State, NIH, NSF, DOL, DHS, ICE, TSA, USCIS | ||
| GSA | Jeremy Lewin | 1/20 | USAID, CFPB, HHS, NIH, CMS, State | ||
| GSA | Ethan Shaotran | 1/20 | Ed., SSA, USADF, IAF, USPS, DFC | ||
| GSA | Erica Jehling | 2/XX | EPA | ||
| GSA | Boris Kizenko | SBA | |||
| GSA | Donald Park | 2/XX | SBA, EXIM, DOD | ||
| GSA | Nate Cavanaugh | 2/03 | USADF, IAF, USIP, NEH, MCC, IMLS, Commerce, MBDA, NLRB, DFC, EXIM, MSPB | ||
| GSA | Riley Sennott | 2/12 | NASA, SBA | ||
| GSA | Kyle Schutt | c.2/18 | DHS, CISA, CBP, FEMA, ICE, TSA, USCIS, HHS | ||
| GSA | Justin Fox | 3/XX | NEH, MCC, WWICS, NLRB | ||
| GSA | Alexander Simonpour | 3/XX | USPS, NASA | ||
| GSA | Bridget Youngs | 3/XX | DOL, Peace | ||
| GSA | Jonathan Mendelson | 4/09 | DFC, SEC | ||
| GSA | Jack Stein | 4/15 | |||
| GSA | Alexander Tullman | 4/XX | HHS | ||
| GSA | Marshall Wood | 4/21 | DFC | ||
| GSA | Dave Malcher | c.4/24 | VA | ||
| GSA | Ryan Shea | 5/XX | HHS | ||
| GSA | Brian Burroughs | 6/XX | Commerce, OPM, State, USDA | ||
| GSA | Micaela Lopez Ballefin | SBA |
Other Agencies
There are also a fair number of Wreckers who started at other agencies, possibly because agency policy or practices might have made it difficult to detail someone from elsewhere. Or, there might have been explicit direction from agency leadership to hire staff there. For instance, there were four Wreckers hired directly from SpaceX to work at the FAA for the short-term on the direction of the Department of Transportation head, Sean Duffy. Some of these names might also be reclassified if I am able to determine they started at GSA or OPM and were actually detailed to the agency listed below.