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He’s 25 and doesn’t have the resources to protect himself and his family for the next 4 decades and neither Trump or Musk will give the tiniest of shits.
Musk now controls all US payments 🚨 | USDA freezes payments to farmers
- Thread starter superrific
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DOGE deputy to oversee powerful Treasury system as Musk demands cuts
The move follows the ousting of a career official who rebuffed attempts to use the payment system to stop federal spending.“…
Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive with ties to DOGE, will become the financial assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, the people said. He replaces David A. Lebryk, who resigned after objecting to Krause’s demands to stop payments on foreign aid — a measure Lebryk resisted as illegal.
Krause’s position will give him control over the Treasury Department system responsible for disbursing more than $5 trillion in annual payments, including for Social Security, Medicare, tax refunds and thousands of other measures. Musk has demanded on social media that Treasury unilaterally stop sending these payments, accusing the department’s career staff of breaking the law.
The decision puts Musk’s DOGE in a potential position to make sweeping changes to the federal budget, with implications for tens of millions of Americans.
The payment system, run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, contains sensitive taxpayer information, and some former Treasury officials have expressed concerns about granting access to individuals with private business interests. The move has also touched off broad alarm within the Treasury Department, the people said.
“This is the bureau designed to be run by a career, nonpolitical person, but being taken over by a member of DOGE,” said Aaron Klein, a former Treasury Department official now at the Brookings Institution, a D.C. think tank.
“It’s pretty scary — the Fiscal Service is the bureau of the people who cut the checks. They don’t determine who gets the checks. And the data that goes through this is of massive national security consequences.” …”
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Judge Halts Access to Treasury Payment Systems by Elon Musk’s Team
The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 attorneys general accusing the president of failing to faithfully execute the nation’s laws when he let DOGE comb through federal computer systems.“… Judge Engelmayer ordered any such official who was granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.” He also restricted the Trump administration from granting access to these categories of officials.
The defendants — President Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Treasury Department — should show cause on Feb. 14 before Judge Jeannette A. Vargas, who is handling the case on a permanent basis, Judge Engelmayer said.
… Before President Trump took office last month, access was granted to only a limited number of career civil servants with security clearances, the suit said. But Mr. Musk’s efforts had interrupted federal funding for health clinics, preschools, and climate initiatives, according to the filing.
The money had already been allocated by Congress. The Constitution assigns to lawmakers the job of deciding government spending.
“President Trump does not have the power to give away Americans’ private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress,” Ms. James said in a statement. “Musk and DOGE have no authority to access Americans’ private information and some of our country’s most sensitive data.” …”
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When a reporter asked Trump whether Musk and his "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) task force really needed that kind of access to Americans' sensitive data, the president replied, "Well, it doesn't, but they get it easily. I mean, we don't have very good security in this country and they get it very easily."
www.rawstory.com
'Disgrace': Critics outraged by apparent confession at Trump's latest press conference
President Donald Trump was finally confronted at a joint press conference with the Japanese prime minister on Friday about tech billionaire Elon Musk's rapid infiltration of government IT systems — in particular access to the system that handles almost all payments for the Treasury Department...
www.rawstory.com
Mulberry Heel
Inconceivable Member
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Yep. One nice thing for them about hiring all of these very young flunkies straight out of college (or not even college grads) is that they have no resources or probably life and work experience to know how to protect themselves, can be paid less, and are therefore highly expendable. And easily intimidated and manipulated as well.
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Musk has repeatedly blatantly lied or grossly mislead about his “findings” so grain of salt:
I hope at least this is a sign of Musk backing down/moderating his attempt at unchecked control of payments out of Treasury in the face of court orders.
Note his apparent focus on blocking entitlement payments. I agree that the estimated fraud number by whoever “people in the room” are sounds insane — insanely overstated or insane if true, with widely different implications…
I am 100% cool with an audit of the process and improvements in record-keeping but Musk has proven completely untrustworthy in running or reporting such a process — and nothing he has done so far constitutes anything like a proper, professional audit.
In addition, nothing should be implemented on the fly, like weekly or daily updates to the do not pay list that could throw unsuspecting social security recipients into a bureaucratic hell if they are wrongly listed and denied their payments.
I hope at least this is a sign of Musk backing down/moderating his attempt at unchecked control of payments out of Treasury in the face of court orders.
Note his apparent focus on blocking entitlement payments. I agree that the estimated fraud number by whoever “people in the room” are sounds insane — insanely overstated or insane if true, with widely different implications…
I am 100% cool with an audit of the process and improvements in record-keeping but Musk has proven completely untrustworthy in running or reporting such a process — and nothing he has done so far constitutes anything like a proper, professional audit.
In addition, nothing should be implemented on the fly, like weekly or daily updates to the do not pay list that could throw unsuspecting social security recipients into a bureaucratic hell if they are wrongly listed and denied their payments.
- Messages
- 29,278
Musk has repeatedly blatantly lied or grossly mislead about his “findings” so grain of salt:
I hope at least this is a sign of Musk backing down/moderating his attempt at unchecked control of payments out of Treasury in the face of court orders.
Note his apparent focus on blocking entitlement payments. I agree that the estimated fraud number by whoever “people in the room” are sounds insane — insanely overstated or insane if true, with widely different implications…
I am 100% cool with an audit of the process and improvements in record-keeping but Musk has proven completely untrustworthy in running or reporting such a process — and nothing he has done so far constitutes anything like a proper, professional audit.
In addition, nothing should be implemented on the fly, like weekly or daily updates to the do not pay list that could throw unsuspecting social security recipients into a bureaucratic hell if they are wrongly listed and denied their payments.
This makes it hard to believe that Musk has made any actual good faith arrangement with Treasury or that he can be trusted in any of his related claims.
- Messages
- 29,278
Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social)
The people who are engaged in a series of illegal abuses of government power - some might even call it a coup! - are labeling even the slightest judicial pushback to be a coup. I don't know where this ends, but its clear where they want it to end.
bsky.app
thebruinbleedstarheelblue
Distinguished Member
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" should not be"
evrheel
Distinguished Member
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'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order
'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order
Elon Musk appears poised to defy a judicial order, according to observers. Musk, the richest man in the world and an appointee of Donald Trump, was dealt a blow over the weekend when a judge reportedly blocked Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing personal financial...
www.rawstory.com
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- 3,154
No worries'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order
'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order
Elon Musk appears poised to defy a judicial order, according to observers. Musk, the richest man in the world and an appointee of Donald Trump, was dealt a blow over the weekend when a judge reportedly blocked Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing personal financial...
Pam Bondi will arrest him-well maybe not
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It is so patently obvious that nobody in Trump's orbit will need any judicial finding that doesn't agree with their own take on issues.
HandsonFire
Distinguished Member
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- 488
Oh no I am so surprised this is so shocking, I just can’t believe this. But Pubs are the party of law and order right? Right ?'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order
'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order
Elon Musk appears poised to defy a judicial order, according to observers. Musk, the richest man in the world and an appointee of Donald Trump, was dealt a blow over the weekend when a judge reportedly blocked Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing personal financial...
- Messages
- 29,278
Five Former Treasury Secretaries:
Our Democracy Is Under Siege
By Robert E. Rubin, Lawrence H. Summers, Timothy F. Geithner, Jacob J. Lew and Janet L. Yellen
The writers are former Treasury secretaries.
“… The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
One has been appointed fiscal assistant secretary — a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.
These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest.
They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information.
Their power subjects America’s payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries.
And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care. That is why a federal judge this past weekend blocked, at least temporarily, these individuals from the Treasury’s payments system, noting the risk of “irreparable harm.” …”
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- 29,278
Continued
“… We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.
A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.
The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not.
As Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court previously wrote, “Even the president does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds.”
Chief Justice John Roberts agrees: He wrote that “no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse.”
During our collective 18 years at the helm of the Treasury, we never were asked to stop congressionally appropriated funds from being paid out in full. Not since the Nixon administration has this type of executive action been contemplated. At that time, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president did not have the power to withhold federal funds that Congress had authorized.
…
No Treasury secretary in his or her first weeks in office should be put in the position where it is necessary to reassure the nation and the world of the integrity of our payments system or our commitment to make good on our financial obligations.
Secretary Scott Bessent has had to do just that, and we were comforted to see the agency commit to Congress that any recent access to Treasury’s payment systems “is not resulting in the suspension or rejection of any payment instructions submitted” to the federal government. When he has been asked — repeatedly — if Treasury has tried to block any federal payments, he has stated unequivocally that “we have not.”
… But even more than the importance of making good on particular commitments is the importance of making good on the principles that this country stands for. We have during our service in the Treasury Department faced moments of crisis, when the specter of an American default loomed.
Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default.
And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.”
——
That’s one thing that a lot of the laissez faire observers of what the Trump Administration is doing don’t seem to get — once the reputational and foundational damage is done, it doesn’t just come back if we change course in response to a court order or just by someone talking Trump out of it.
It takes years and decades to build good will and trust. It only takes a single moment to destroy them. It is easy for an arsonist to toss a match and watch it burn. It can take communities years, if ever, to recover, and often the original community is displaced by a very different community in the aftermath.
“… We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.
A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.
The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not.
As Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court previously wrote, “Even the president does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds.”
Chief Justice John Roberts agrees: He wrote that “no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse.”
During our collective 18 years at the helm of the Treasury, we never were asked to stop congressionally appropriated funds from being paid out in full. Not since the Nixon administration has this type of executive action been contemplated. At that time, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president did not have the power to withhold federal funds that Congress had authorized.
…
No Treasury secretary in his or her first weeks in office should be put in the position where it is necessary to reassure the nation and the world of the integrity of our payments system or our commitment to make good on our financial obligations.
Secretary Scott Bessent has had to do just that, and we were comforted to see the agency commit to Congress that any recent access to Treasury’s payment systems “is not resulting in the suspension or rejection of any payment instructions submitted” to the federal government. When he has been asked — repeatedly — if Treasury has tried to block any federal payments, he has stated unequivocally that “we have not.”
… But even more than the importance of making good on particular commitments is the importance of making good on the principles that this country stands for. We have during our service in the Treasury Department faced moments of crisis, when the specter of an American default loomed.
Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default.
And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.”
——
That’s one thing that a lot of the laissez faire observers of what the Trump Administration is doing don’t seem to get — once the reputational and foundational damage is done, it doesn’t just come back if we change course in response to a court order or just by someone talking Trump out of it.
It takes years and decades to build good will and trust. It only takes a single moment to destroy them. It is easy for an arsonist to toss a match and watch it burn. It can take communities years, if ever, to recover, and often the original community is displaced by a very different community in the aftermath.