Acting With Impunity

According to his later sworn testimony, Noah Peters meets with Keenan Kmiec to outline his plan on how to use administrative leave to sideline federal employees from being able to do their work and counter or monitor DOGE’s activities at their agencies. (fuzz: Date is approximate in deposition)

USDS is transferred out of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and established a standalone office in the Executive Office of the President.

The DOGE team moves into a secure office within OPM, installing sofa beds and armed security to prevent other staff from entry.

IT staff at OPM are pulled into a “911-esque call” requesting that “a political team” of 6 individuals must be given access to OPM systems. These include Charles Ezell, Greg Hogan, and Amanda Scales, as well as unidentified employees OPM-03 (Akash Bobba), OPM-05 (Gavin Kliger) and OPM-07 (Brian Bjelde). These DOGE staffers are granted administrative access to USAJOBS, USA Staffing, and USA Performance systems.

Career IT staff in the Office of the CIO at OPM report that their database access was completely revoked by DOGE staff working at the agency.

Greg Barbaccia is named as the new Federal Chief Information Officer, a role which places him in charge of the CIO Council at OMB that coordinates the activities of federal CIOs.

Charles Ezell sends an email to OPM IT staff stating that OPM-02 (Riccardo Biasini), OPM-04 (Edward Coristine), and OPM-06 (Nikhil Rajpal) “urgently” need access to several sensitive systems within the agency.

A team of high-ranking GSA employees meets with Nicole Hollander to discuss building special “resting rooms” for DOGE and other A-suite staff.

After USAID’s director of labor relations pushed back against the push to suspend and fire the employees, he threatens to report it to the Office of Special Counsel and emails the employees saying he has no grounds to keep them on leave. As a result, Clayton Cromer commands security staff to forcibly remove him from the building.

Jeremy Lewin and Elon Musk order the acting head of USAID to comply with orders to lock every USAID employee worldwide out of all email and other communication systems. He refuses, stating that a sudden loss of access could get aid workers killed.

Wired reports that DOGE staff are attempting to get elevated access to GSA systems and making changes to office arrangements to create a special reserved floor for their staff with a security guard checking names.

Federal employees at OPM report they are locked out of access to key systems by DOGE and OPM leadership.

The acting head of the USAID, Jason Gray, is removed and replaced by Marco Rubio. Rubio then resigns and names Peter Marocco the Acting Deputy Administrator for the agency, giving him absolute power to force his demands.

THe USAID Director of Security and their deputy are placed on administrative leave for reportedly trying to prevent DOGE from accessing personnel files and classified data

DOGE staff arrive at USAID HQ hoping to work within the administrator’s suite at USAID, but their badges were not properly coded to provide access. The DOGE staff reportedly concluded this meant agency staff were keeping them out and could not be trusted.

Within three hours of the request, Edward Coristine and Donald Park are granted “admin authority” to the mainframe and read-only access to the NFC Insight and Reporting Center applications. This gives them the ability to see sensitive information like salary, banking information and even debt for employees at the SBA (and possibly other agencies)

Mike Russo officially joins the agency as its new CIO. He then immediately requests that Akash Bobba should be rapidly onboarded into the agency (but there are issues with Bobba’s background check)

One of AFGE’s members who works in the headquarters of the Department received an instruction from Department leadership that Elon Musk and his DOGE team would be accessing Department of Labor headquarters beginning around 4 p.m. on February 5, 2025. This member and other employees were told by Department leadership that when Mr. Musk and his team visit, they are to do whatever they ask, not to push back, not to ask questions. They were told to provide access to any DOL system they requested access to and not to worry about any security protocols; “just do it.”

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.

Thomas Flagg, the CIO of the Dept. of Education, sends a memo to the heads of IT that orders them to give DOGE staff prompt access to all systems that they request.

Career IT staff in the Office of the CIO at OPM have their database access restored by order of the CIO Greg Hogan. It is unclear who ordered the original revocation of access and what changes have happened in the interim.

DOGE staff are granted global admin access to various CFPB systems without completing all the mandated training or agreeing to CFPB’s acceptable use policy for IT systems. This includes a system that allows them to grant or revoke access to other IT systems at the CFPB.

President Trump dismisses the Archivist of the United States, the head of the National Archives and the chief official responsible for preserving government records. Marco Rubio is named the Acting Archivist.

All USAID staff are placed on indefinite administrative leave, as a way of locking them out of systems and keeping them out of the way of DOGE’s activities at the agency.

NBC News reports that Akash Bobba and Ethan Shaotran have admin access to email at the Department of Education and had also accessed the backend admin for the agency website.

Using their admin access, Gavin Kliger and Luke Farritor completely disable accounts for all other USAID staff on the agency’s system for creating and tracking payments. They now have absolute control.

Mike Russo and the DOGE chief of staff Steve Davis both demand that Akash Bobba be onboarded at Social Security Administration before midnight, bypassing the usual background security checks.

CIO Mike Russo convenes his own internal informational group in SSA where he has conversations with DOGE staff at other agencies about novel ideas for sharing sensitive SSA data. He does not inform Acting SSA Director, Michelle King.

According to the testimony of a whistleblower, the nominatee for agency director, Frank Bisignano, orders through back channels that agency leadership must onboard Mark Steffensen as an attorney at the SSA. He reportedly had coerced senior SSA leadership to not hire anybody into roles without his explicit approval.

The USAID Inspector General is fired by the White House after releasing a report critical of DOGE’s actions at the agency.

DOGE staffers granted authorization to use a SQL client for databases file transfer software at Department of Labor, alarming cybersecurity staff that it could be used to remove data. The staffers named are Sam Beyda, Derek Geissler, Cole Killian, Adam Ramada and Jordan Wick.

SSA IT staff express concern to Acting Commissioner Michelle King that Akash Bobba is accessing highly sensitive data provided by SSA remotely from an insecure location (the DOGE enclave within OPM). This is in violation of the terms of his signed access agreement.

Frustrated with the questions and concerns raised by Akash Bobba about technical issues with the sandbox NUMIDENT data, Mike Russo complains directly to the Chief CIO in the office of the OMB.

Donald Park sets up the @DOGE_SBA account on X as a communications channel for DOGE and a place for the general public to snitch on agency activities. He does not involve agency communications staff that would normally handle social media accounts.

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

In a filing in “State of New Mexico v. Elon Musk,” DOJ lawyers declare on the record that Elon Musk is not the USDS Administrator, but just a mere advisor.

The head of the medical device safety division at the FDA is fired amid mass layoffs

DOGE staffer Ted Malaska declares that SpaceX is the only company able to complete a communications network contract already awarded to Verizon. He also hreatens to report the names of anybody blocking his work directly to Musk.

A GSA employee reportedly resigned rather than give unrestricted admin access for the SMS emergency notification service Notify.gov to Thomas Shedd.

A CNN reporter shares that his FOIA request to OPM was replied to with the message “they just fired the whole privacy team.”

Edward Coristine and Kyle Schutt are reportedly given elevated access to CISA systems, including documents and staff emails.

Thomas Shedd has allegedly requested admin access to 19 different systems within TTS at GSA

Trump political appointees and DOGE staffers hold an impromptu celebration of their work on the one-month anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, complete with a celebratory cake, in the agency’s new temporary offices where senior staff are isolated from the remaining career employees by a “moat” of 90 empty desks

Jacob Altik demands waivers to exempt DOGE staff from background checks. He also threatens to fire the USADF board if DOGE’s demands are not met.

In a hearing for “Alliance for Retired Americans v. Bessent,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly repeatedly grills DOJ lawyers to identify who the USDS Administrator is.

The IAF President Sara Aviel joins a call with Nate Cavanaugh and Jacob Altik, who claim that all but one of the board members have been terminated. They demand that Aviel approves DOGE’s plan for the agency – which she declines to do – and that she sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) assigning a DOGE member to the agency and granting them access to systems. After the call, she confirms that no board members had received a termination notice.

The Social Security Administration eliminates an internal team of technologists called the Office of Transformation that was working to modernize SSA processes. Although officially made by Leland Dudek, this direction was given by Scott Coulter.

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.

Republican lawmakers on the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security unanimously opposed a resolution of inquiry into DOGE activities at DHS.

Wired reports that DOGE staff were given read-only access to some systems and read-write access to payment systems within HUD, as well as the centralized authorization system that would allow the team to grant or revoke access to other systems.

In a meeting the day after a federal judge ordered USAID to release funding for humanitarian operations, Jeremy Lewin, not yet in charge of programs at the agency, told senior staff that he viewed the legal rulings as a license to dispense with some of the formal reviews for unfreezing operations. One of the attendees took his remarks to mean he had no intention of unfreezing anything.

USADF Managing Director of Finance Mathieu Zahui receives an email from White House Deputy Director of Personnel Trent Morse informing him the USADF is now “boardless” and naming Peter Marocco as acting chair. Zahui informs them that the appointment would require senate confirmation first.

The EPA takes its staff directory offline after it had been used to identify new political appointees and DOGE staffers that were detailed to the agency.

The head of HR, Traci DiMartini, for the IRS is placed on administrative leave reportedly for refusing to bring in employees over the weekend to onboard Sam Corcos outside of the usual hiring processes and schedule.

The NLRB Assistant CIO conveys instructions that there are to be no logs or records made of accounts that are created for DOGE staff and they are to be given “tenant”-level accounts with read/write/admin for all systems as part of their auditing work. This level of access exceed existing permissions that would normally be used by auditors.

Peter Marocco announces himself to staff at IAF as President/CEO. He then begins immediately dismantling all contracts and places all staff on administrative leave for 30 days to prevent them from interfering or monitoring DOGE’s actions at the agency.

NLRB network staff discover that a security tool for watching network traffic within their cloud environment was manually deactivated and was not logging the creation of new network nodes.

A NLRB network staffer notices a large spike in outgoing network traffic from their network with no corresponding incoming traffic (as might be the case for web traffic hitting the website). He also sees a surge in DNS requests which might be used to hide tunnels for stealing data.

NLRB network staff an account a DOGE-specific name DogeSA_2d5c3e0446f9@nlrb.microsoft.com that was recently created and then deleted. It seems to have been configured to allow automated scripts to access NLRB’s cloud.

After various users reported login problems to the service desk, networking staff at NLRB discover that certain conditional access policies had been updated without their awareness. This change was later confirmed to not be the result of any scheduled maintenance.

Networking staff at NLRB discovered that 3 Github libraries were downloaded in the prior 30 days by DOGE staff at the agency which could be used for scraping high volumes of data and obscuring the source requests.

Networking staff at NLRB makes a determination that 10GB of data was likly exfiltrated from the NxGen case management system and then outwards from NLRB. Given that this volume of data is likely compressed, it could represent an even larger amount of source data stolen.

Starting from this data and continuing until March 17, members of the DOGE team at SSA were using servers at Cloudflare to share SSA data (the exact product is not identified, but it could be the D1 system for SQL databases). Needless to say, Cloudflare is not approved by SSA for storing sensitive data, and SSA staff have been unable to determine what data was shared and if it is still hosted on Cloudflare systems.

The federal staff who objected to DOGE getting access to NDNH are “no longer with the agency”

The OPM Inspector General responds to questions from Democrats in Congress by stating his office will start investigating DOGE’s email server and its IT practices at the agency.

NLRB networking staff notice another surge in system utilization for the NxGen system. This coincides with multiple attempts to connect to the system from an IP address in Russia. Alarmingly, the Russian access is attempting to use an account that was created only 15 minutes earlier by DOGE engineers at the agency.

After reportedly supporting DOGE activities in the State Department, Ross Graber is named as the new CIO for the Department of Energy

The acting chief counsel of the IRS, William Paul, is removed from his role and replaced by Andrew De Mello, who is seen as more supportive of DOGE’s work at the agency.

NLRB networking staff detect another large transfer of data from NLRB systems to an external endpoint.

Various members of the USIP board report receiving emails from the White House saying they are terminated from their positions. (fuzz: sender isn’t named, but assuming it’s Trent Morse.)

DOGE members Kenneth Jackson, Jacob Altik and Nate Cavanaugh show up at USIP building with 2 other people who claim to be FBI agents. They are refused entry. The DOGE delegation attempts to present a document firing the USIP president.

The Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Johnathan Hornok, and two FBI special agents call USIP’s outside counsel, Mr. Foote, on the phone stating that they had suspicion of criminal behavior occuring at USIP.

The Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) team at Social Security discovers that DOGE’s access to the EDW was not authorized through the standard process.

Asked by USIP leadership on why they are assisting DOGE in accessing the building, the Vice President of Inter-Con concedes that DOGE threatened to cancel every single one of their federal contracts if they didn’t comply.

USIP President George Moose is escorted out of the building by DC police who entered with DOGE at 5:30pm to eject the USIP staff and leadership.

In a ruling in J. Doe 1-26 v. Musk (D. Md), Judge Theodore D. Chuang declares that evidence shows that Elon Musk was effectively running DOGE without being formally appointed to the role.

In an unsigned email response to the Intercept Media, DOGE claims it is within the Executive Office of the President and thus not subject to FOIA.

Notes from a meeting at DOL about DOGE access state “they do not have write access. They have asked; we’ve held them at bay. We’ve tried to get them to tell us what they want & then we do it. They only have read access”

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.

Marko Elez affirms he has completed his mandatory privacy training at the Department of Labor. This would normally be required before any system access, but he has been at the agency for several weeks.

NLRB networking staff observe a spike in billing records from their cloud provider which are seemingly related to systems that are no longer in operation. These likely indicate resources that were short-lived or deleted to cover up tracks.

Trump issues an executive order EO 14243 which explicitly includes an instruction that “the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary’s designees shall receive, to the maximum extent consistent with law, unfettered access to all unemployment data and related payment records, including all such data and records currently available to the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.”

Stephen Ehikian claims during an all-hands meeting that there is nobody from DOGE working at the agency. This is met with widespread ridicule by staff who know about the secured DOGE floor.

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 in their possession.

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

Less than 24 hours after DOGE’s access was revoked by the temporary restraining order, senior members of the EDW team receive emails ordering them to restore access for two members of the DOGE team. Furthermore, they were ordered to grant them additional expanded privileges.

NLRB networking staff make a formal report to US-CERT at CISA of the suspicious activity they had detected from DOGE’s activities at the agency. (fuzz: Source mentions it was on or about this date)

After members of an unidentified political advocacy group contacted two members of the DOGE team at SSA, one of the DOGE members signed a Voter Data Agreement to share data. The group was looking for data to accuse states of fraud to overturn election results. The DOGE team member did not consult SSA lawyers or follow any mandatory clearance procedures for sharing data with outside entities. It is unclear if they sent data, but the two employees were referred for investigation of violating the Hatch Act in December 2025, which forbids government officials from partisan political activities.

In a later interview, Sahil Lavingia describes attending an “E-meeting” for DOGE that included Elon Musk but was essentially run by Steve Davis as well as two other Musk loyalists, Anthony Armstrong and Baris Akis. Baris Akis is notably not an employee of DOGE, since he is a foreign national and Musk was not granted a waiver to hire him. (fuzz: date is given as “late March,” assuming a Wednesday bc others reported DOGE meetings during that time)

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 other DOGE staff there.

In response to litigation about records keeping, DOGE submits a new records retention policy

Tyler Hassen places the CIO and CISO at the Department of the Interior on admininstrative leave under investigation for raising alarm about DOGE’s access and delaying Stephanie Holmes from having admin access to the FPPS system.

DOGE abruptly places 50 technologists working at the IRS on administrative leave. This is a common tactic used by DOGE to prevent federal staff from monitoring or checking DOGE’s actions at the agencies and is often a precursor to firing them.

The SBA CIO, Marcus Alzona, who had been in the role for about a month, is abruptly removed from his position.

The manager of the DOI’s labor relations branch initiates an investigation of the DOI’s CIO, Deputy CIO, Associate Solicitor and a Special Advisor to HR over their attempts to prevent DOGE from having admin access to FPPS.

Jordan Wick is granted high-level access to the National Payment Service (NPS) system, which would allow him to see and alter payments or even cancel loans to farmers and other agricultural producers. Concerningly, his activities are not logged or recorded.

A contractor at GSA states that he came across a list of staff at GSA who had not yet completed all of their mandatory security training. This included prominent DOGE staff that had been at the agency for several months like Thomas Shedd, Josh Gruenbaum, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor and Steve Davis. (fuzz: only month is given in report)

Multiple senior technological positions at the IRS are terminated. These include director of cybersecurity architecture and implementation, deputy chief information security officer, and acting director of security risk management.

CISA informs NLRB networking staff that they should drop any investigation and not move forward on any reporting of the suspicious activity at the agency.

A partial copy of the GSA’s A-Suite access list includes multiple DOGE personnel who are listed as based in GSA.

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 forcibly declare immigrants dead both illegal and cruel

The plaintiffs in AFGE, AFL-CIO, et. al vs. OPM file a motion asking for the testimony of Noah Peters to be disregarded because they argue it is misleading and possibly fabricated in certain parts.

On the day that NPR published a story with the claims of a whistleblower at the NLRB, the Deputy CIO of the agency, Eric Mark, suspends administrative access for all employees, locking the IT staff out of their ability to continue monitoring DOGE’s actions at the agency.

All 14 current members of the Pentagon’s pre-existing Defense Digital Service team announce a mass resignation after weeks of being sidelined and frustrated with DOGE’s efforts at the agency.

Claiming that he knew of warrantless wiretapping from the NSA, Justin Fulcher pressured Defense Secretary Hegseth’s Chief of Staff and personal legal counsel to let him run an investigation into leaking at the Pentagon. Once he was included, it was clear there was no such evidence, but it had led to several key roles being fired. Justin Fulcher denied this account when reached for comment.

DOGE is granted an administrative stay on replying to CREW’s FOIA requests while its appeal is being considered by an appeals court.

Multiple federal staffers who handle sensitive data related to migrant workers are placed on leave for raising objections about DOGE gaining access to those data systems to target that population for arrest and deportation.

IT staff at FSA report they were heavily targeted for layoffs despite complying with requests to provide information about critical systems, meaning much more of the FDA infrastructure is at risk of failure

DOGE staff assigned to the FAA have reportedly enlisted government staff to work on a secret communications project named “Project Lift,” requiring them to sign NDAs. It is rumored to be about incorporating Starlink into FAA projects.

Three members of the board for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting receive an email from Trent Morse at the White House informing them that they have been fired. This renders the board inert without quorum.

Ross Graber abruptly resigns as the CIO of the Department of Energy, making him the second DOGE pick to be named to and exit the role. The responsibilities of CIO are reverted back to the agency’s Deputy CIO, who had been serving in the role after Ryan Riedel’s departure.

Gavin Kliger leaves the CFPB, officially because his detail had ended but his departure date is also the day he would be in violation of ethics rules for having not sold stock holdings prohibited to CFBP staff.

Trump abruptly fires three Democratic members of the board of the CPSC, eliminating quorum for the board and rendering the agency leadership inert.

An appeals court rules that DOGE must resume complying with FOIA requests filed by CREW about the organization’s internal operations. That work had been on hold since an administrative stay on April 18

The NLRB confirms that its Inspector General is looking into the allegations of improper network access and data theft by DOGE.

A GAO spokesman confirms that DOGE had attempted to assign a team to the agency but had been rebuffed by agency leadership.

A memo directed to NRC from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) declares that OIRA should have oversight over regulations made at the independent agency and that NRC staff “may not know or be privy to the bases for OMB decisions for why an action is significant.”

Staff cleaning the USIP HQ after it is reclaimed by its owners find discarded marijuana, presumably left by DOGE staffers. It is currently illegal for federal workers to smoke pot, and especially so within government facilities.

In a meeting shortly after Trump signed executive orders relating to the NRC, DOGE staffer Adam Blake reportedly told the chair and top staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they would be expected to “rubber stamp” any reactor designs which might be tested by the Department of Energy or the Department of Defense.

The Supreme Court issues a stay on the shadow docket for an order from an appeals court that DOGE must start producing documents for CREW, meaning that DOGE is once again able to delay producing documents.

President Trump issues EO 14300, which orders the NRC to relax its regulatory oversight over the nuclear industry. It also demands that the agency must plan for a Reduction-in-Force (RIF) and realign its organizational priorities. Following the model used by the Trump Administration for other independent agencies, this is probably the prelude for DOGE to arrive at the agency.

After Politico published a report that included an email from a 30-year veteran of the Bureau of Land Management which told staff to ignore instructions from Stephanie Holmes that they weren’t allow to sub in for empty roles, he is escorted out of the building by security.

The judge in AFL-CIO vs. OPM examines Greg Hogan on the stand and asks if he had followed the principle of least privilege in providing system access to DOGE. The judge’s questions indicated that she seemed to be leaning towards a issuing a preliminary injunction against DOGE’s “chaotic” access to systems at OPM.

Frank Bisignano is granted permission to remove any DOGE staff at his agency. According to the report, “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 in early June.

In a 6-3 ruling on an emergency application, the US Supreme Court overturned rulings from lower courts that DOGE would have to comply immediately with records requests from CREW in their lawsuit. This rejection does not terminate the case, but it allows for an indefinite pause as cases are being considered.

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 New York Times suggests that Mike Russo and Aram Moghaddassi have essentially been acting as joint CIOs at the agency.

Judge Cote, presiding over AFGE v. OPM, grants a preliminary injunction against DOGE having access to systems at OPM and orders them to destroy any information they have copied. She finds that OPM failed to follow proper procedures for granting access.

John Solly asks staff in the Social Security Administration’s CIO office (then possibly under the leadership of Scott Coulter or Aram Moghaddassi) to create a cloud environment to upload the NUMIDENT data to. The stated reason was purported reason for the project was to improve the way that SSA exchanges data.

Ruling in Brehm v. Marocco, Judge Leon denies the plaintiff’s request for a temporary restraining order, finding that Trump was likely within the bounds of the law when he removed board members of the USADF.

John Solly modifies his request to instead ask to transfer NUMIDENT data to a test environment. This is not entirely unheard of, but it’s considered a very insecure practice to move production data into a testing environment that might not be authorized for that. DOGE then amends their request again to ask for full admin access to SSA’s cloud environment.

A career official writes up a Risk Acceptance Request Form to share with Aram Moghaddassi and another unnamed career official in the office of the CIO at Social Security about DOGE’s request to have administrative access to a separate Virtual Private Cloud within the Amazon Web Services infrastructure at SSA. The official classifies this as high-risk due a proposal to copy NUMIDENT data to a developer environment with looser access controls and security measures. DOGE developers would also be able to make this data publicly accessible without following the Authority to Operate (ATO) requirements for any new public services and install software not approved for operation in SSA infrastructure.

White House Deputy Director Trent Morse sends a letter firing one of the five members of the board (and the only Biden appointee) for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for SSA sends an email to Aram Moghaddassi with his assessment that moving NUMIDENT data to the cloud would be at an unacceptably high risk for being hacked or stolen (computed on a 1-5 scale with a 3 for probability of risk and 5 for the impact of this risk)

Jeremy Lewin signs off on an award to a Trump-backed aid group in Gaza, despite objections that the group failed to meet “minimum technical or budgetary standards” and waived mandatory counter-terrorism and fraud safeguards. The funding request was made by Kenneth Jackson, who ignored 58 objections raised by former USAID staff.

Reportedly acting as a joint CIO at Social Security, Mike Russo overrides the concerns of junior staff in the Office of the CIO at the Social Security Administration and approves a request by John Solly to transfer NUMIDENT data into the new DOGE-controlled cloud environment.

Two days after preventing a data sharing request from ICE due to legal issues, the acting counself for the IRS is fired and removed from his job.

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.

An unidentified DOGE team member used the official DOGE VA account on X.com to send a direct message ridiculing a Republican donor who had proposed the imaginary “DOGE Dividend Check” for turning against Musk and creating an anti-Musk SuperPAC. According to the administration, that person no longer works for the VA.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Steve Davis continues to exert control over DOGE via informal communications, despite having departed the agency after Musk left.

A USDA employee tells Wired that they have been told to refer to the DOGE team at the agency as the USDA Digital Service instead.

A USDA staffer (and USDA spokesperson later confirms) that the DOGE team in the agency is now referred to as the USDA Efficiency Team or “E Team.”

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.

Acting in his role as the CIO for Social Security Administration, Aram Moghaddassi authorizes a Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) for the project of moving the NUMIDENT data from Social Security’s controlled environment into the special cloud soley operated by DOGE. As the CIO, he is allowed to assume the risk of bypassing mandatory security requirements, but not if it violates federal law or puts sensitive data at risk of being stolen. According to the testimony of several whistleblowers, the cloud project is reportedly being run by Edward Coristine.

Expressing concerns that the lax security of DOGE’s cloud could lead to the leak of every American’s social security number (and the requirement ro reissue new ones), the Chief Data Officer of the Social Security Administration contacts Edward Coristine and John Solly to request information about the security of DOGE’s cloud. He is never granted a reply and learns that the SSA Office of General Counsel (headed by DOGE member Mark Steffensen) has advised employees not to respond to his inquiries.

Ruling in Burleigh v. FCC, Judge Amy Berman Jackson denies a preliminary injunction that would compel the FCC to make all documents about DOGE activities available for FOIA by October 10th. Nevertheless, the judge ordered DOGE to provide more details on its activities at the agency, expressing concern at the skimpy 35 pages of documentation that the agency had provided so far.

The Chief Information Officer for NIH departs her role after only eight months on the job. She was the first CIO at NIH after a vacancy of two years and it’s unclear if anybody at NIH will serve as Acting CIO.

The Chief Data Officer of the Social Security Administration, Charles Borges, submits a public whistleblower complaint alleging that DOGE cut corners and skirted mandatory IT oversight in order to copy sensitive NUMIDENT data of the social security numbers of all Americans into a private cloud environment that only they controlled. He cites several specific events here in the timeline.

Reporting that retaliation and abuse have made it impossible for him to do his job, whistleblower Charles Borges resigns from his position at the Social Security Administration. Retaliation against whistleblowers is a prohibited personnel practice for federal staff, but it can be difficult to prove and enforce.

Zach Terrell is named as the new Chief Technology Officer at HHS. He reportedly is also continuing to hold a role at NSF, supervising DOGE activities there.

Commissioner Frank Bisignano issues a press release announcing the new leadership structure for the Social Security Administration. This officially confirms the reports that DOGE members Aram Moghaddassi and Mike Russo had effectively been acting as co-CIOs, with Mr. Moghaddassi named to the title of Chief Information Officer (Technology and Customer Products) and Mr. Russo to Chief Information Officer (Core Business Functions)

In an email to all staff, USDA announces that the existing Chief Information Officer for the agency will now be moved to a new role named Chief Innovation Officer and that DOGE team member Samuel Berry will be the next CIO for the agency.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano replies to the letter from the Senate Finance Committee about the allegations of the whistleblower. He claims that all proper procedures were followed and that DOGE did not transfer data to a private cloud within the SSA Amazon Web Services accounts.

The ranking Democratic member of the Senate Comittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs releases a report “Unchecked and Unaccountable” detailing DOGE security transgressions at several agencies, including poor security for the NUMIDENT data at SSA and activities within GSA and OPM

In an email sent to members of the National Council on the Humanities, the White House fired all the people on the board which advises the National Endowment for the Humanities

The government files a motion to dismiss the case in AFGE, AFL-CIO v. OPM arguing that the PII risk cited in the complaint is now no longer an issue because many DOGE staff have left and the few remaining have had access revoked or moderated. Although the bulk of the provided exhibits are under seal, it does provide a more detailed listing of when various DOGE staff have left OPM and who is still remaining.

In a filing in AFL-CIO v. SSA, the government amended several declarations that had been made in Leland Dudek’s testimony on March 24, 2025. For starters, although DOGE access was revoked on that day, a member of DOGE was running queries against PII in the NUMIDENT database up to the moment. Also, the DOGE team at SSA sent encrypted sensitive SSA data to DOGE and the Department of Labor. A member of the DOGE team also signed an agreement to share information with an outside advocacy group without clearing it through proper legal channels.

Acting IRS CEO Frank Bisignano announces a major shake-up for leadership at the IRS, which had already been struggling with vacancies after DOGE-driven reductions last year. Bisignano has announced he will be co-leading tax compliance at the agency. He also promoted DOGE team lead Tom Newnam to the role of Chief Financial Officer, giving him oversight over procurement, facilities and privacy at the agency.

A new report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office determines that the Trump Administration’s attempts to dismantle the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) within the Department of Education have cost the federal government more than $28 million. The Department of Education has been blocked from implementing a reduction in force that would reduce the office to 10% of its former size but it has effectively eliminated civil rights enforcement at the agency.