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Federal judge pushes back on acting Social Security head over threat to close agency
Leland Dudek backed off his argument that a ruling blocking Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team from access to sensitive data could apply to all agency employees.Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek threatened Thursday evening to bar Social Security Administration employees from accessing its computer systems in response to a judge’s order blocking the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing sensitive taxpayer data.
Less than 24 hours later — after the judge rejected his argument and the White House intervened — Dudek is saying he was “out of line.”
Dudek initially told news outlets, including in a Friday interview with The Washington Post, that the judge’s decision to bar sensitive data access to “DOGE affiliates” was overly broad and that to comply, he might have to block virtually all SSA employees from accessing the agency’s computer systems. But Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, who issued the order, said in a letter that Dudek’s assertions “were inaccurate.”
“Employees of SSA who are not involved with the DOGE Team or in the work of the DOGE Team are not subject to the Order,” Hollander wrote in the letter on Friday sent to lawyers involved in the case. “ … Moreover, any suggestion that the Order may require the delay or suspension of benefit payments is incorrect.”
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As Dudek contemplated whether to halt agency operations, many headquarters offices in Woodlawn, Maryland, were thrown into chaos. Members of the DOGE team, about a dozen software engineers, were denied access to the building and to their government laptop computers on Dudek’s order, leaving their status on Microsoft Teams “Unknown,” as if they had quit or retired, said one employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The judge, concluding that DOGE’s access to so much personal information poses major risks, ordered team “members and affiliates” to delete non-anonymized Social Security data in their possession. The order blocked Dudek, Chief Information Officer Michael Russo and others from granting DOGE entry to their systems.
Since the White House elevated him to the top acting job six weeks ago, Dudek has made major changes. A mid-level data analyst accused by several now-retired career leaders of improperly sharing information with DOGE, Dudek has moved to eliminate 7,000 staff roles, announced plans to close dozens of regional and field offices, and claimed that fraud is endemic to agency operations, despite numerous audits and studies over the years saying otherwise. Trump’s nominee to run the agency permanently, Frank Bisignano, is slated to appear at his Senate confirmation hearing next week.
Dudek said he moved quickly after the ruling to terminate access for the DOGE team. But he said he is “trying to get some sliver of access back” for them “because they give good advice.”
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“[The White House] called me and let me know it’s important to reaffirm to the public that we’re open for business,” he said. “The White House did remind me that I was out of line and so did the judge. And I appreciate that.”
But in a second letter sent later Friday evening, Hollander stated that it had come to her attention that Dudek had continued “making threats about shutting down operations” at SSA by arguing that her order “applies to almost all SSA employees.”
The judge reemphasized that the order “applies only to SSA employees working on the DOGE agenda. It has no bearing on ordinary operations at SSA.
“In fact, if others at SSA are involved with DOGE, as Mr. Dudek seems to claim,” she added, “then I was misled by counsel for the government.”
Hollander issued a two-week temporary restraining order Thursday that prohibits Social Security officials from sharing personally identifiable information with Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, which has been empowered to carry out cost-cutting across the government.
