The Trump administration agreed in a late-night court filing Wednesday not to expand access to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system for “special government employees” working with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
The filing followed a series of phone hearings for the lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The case was brought by current and retired federal employee unions that seek to block allegedly unlawful access to government employee data and protect any data that the Department of Government Efficiency workers had accessed. Several lawsuits, as well as Democrats in Congress, have criticized the access given to allies of the Elon Musk-led DOGE, claiming it threatens Americans’ privacy and opens payments up to alteration.
Justice Department attorney Bradley Humphreys said on the calls that two “special government employees” at Treasury, Tom Krause and Marko Elez, have been given read-only access to that system in order to work with DOGE.
Humphreys said the two employees are meant to help carry out policy set by DOGE, a cost-slashing task force based in the White House. In the filing Wednesday night, the government agreed not to expand their access to the system or share information they have access to outside of the Treasury Department.
During the court hearing, Humphreys said Musk himself hasn’t been given access to the payment system, and the two Treasury employees with access haven’t shared any information with Musk or anyone outside the department.
Musk himself has repeatedly claimed that the Treasury Department made payments to “fraudulent” organizations or terrorist groups. He hasn’t disclosed any evidence for the claim.
In a post on Wednesday Musk also claimed that “big money fraud” is happening in Medicare payments, but also didn’t disclose any evidence.
Nandan Joshi, a Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney representing the unions and retired workers, said Wednesday night that just granting access to the system compromised the security of a payment system that has the information of millions of Americans.
“We remain concerned that the records, the personal information of our associations’ members are still compromised,” Joshi said. “If there is a compromise, it is impossible to unbreak the egg.”
The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance for Retired Americans, American Federation of Government Employees, and the Service Employees International Union, argued that just providing access to the system, part of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, violated federal law.
The Treasury Department “decided behind closed doors to allow individuals not involved in the processing of the government’s financial transactions to root around in the Bureau’s records. Giving access to those records is unlawful,” the complaint said.
The plaintiffs had filed for a temporary restraining order early Wednesday to prevent further access to the Treasury system and protect any information that Musk or his allies had already accessed.
During the hearing, District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly repeatedly questioned government attorneys about who has access to the system, which handles trillions of dollars in payments annually.
“The arrangement with the different entities is not easily discerned, which is why I’ve been asking the questions. It does make a difference. The paucity of information in the public sector makes it more difficult,” Kollar-Kotelly said.
In a letter to Congress Tuesday, the Treasury Department only named one employee, Krause, as supervising read-only access to the system. Humphreys on Wednesday said an additional employee, Elez, was given access to the payment system and was supervised by Krause.
During the call, Kollar-Kotelly said that if the government could agree to a status quo order, she would set a briefing schedule to hear motions on the issue at a hearing later this month.
Kollar-Kotelly has yet to rule on the proposed order entered by the government and federal worker unions Wednesday.
The lawsuit is one of more than a half a dozen federal court challenges to actions taken by DOGE, ranging from access to the payment system to access to employment records and more.
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