Happy Tuesday!
Finally a non-Hawaiian judge for a change.
A federal judge has denied a request to prevent Elon Musk's team from accessing Education Department data, ruling that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate any illegal dissemination of sensitive student information.
Key Details:
Judge Randolph D. Moss found no concrete evidence that the Education Department or Musk's team had misused or improperly shared student data.
The lawsuit, filed by the University of California Student Association, sought an emergency restraining order, citing privacy concerns.
The judge acknowledged transparency concerns but noted that Musk's team had been granted access under a recent executive order from President Trump.
Diving Deeper:
A federal district court judge in Washington has rejected an effort to bar associates of Elon Musk from accessing the U.S. Department of Education's data systems, concluding that the students who sued had not demonstrated any immediate or irreparable harm.
Judge Randolph D. Moss ruled that the University of California Student Association, which filed the lawsuit, had failed to show that sensitive student data had been illegally disseminated. In his order, he described the plaintiffs' claims as "entirely conjectural," stating that there was no substantial evidence that Musk's team or the Education Department intended to misuse or distribute the information improperly.
DOGE discovered that $4.7 TRILLION of Treasury payments lack any kind of notation for what the payment is actually for, making them almost impossible to trace and verify.
Any system which makes it impossible to detect fraud has been set up precisely to enable fraud.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), established under President Donald Trump, has discovered that nearly $4.7 trillion in U.S. Treasury payments were processed with an optional, often blank identification code--making them nearly impossible to track. The revelation has prompted immediate changes to federal financial reporting, mandating full transparency on these transactions moving forward.
Key Details:
DOGE found that the Treasury Access Symbol (TAS), a key financial identifier, was frequently left blank in transactions totaling $4.7 trillion.
The Trump administration's watchdog agency worked with the U.S. Treasury to close this loophole, making the TAS field mandatory for all federal payments.
DOGE continues to uncover and eliminate government waste, already reporting an estimated $55 billion in taxpayer savings through spending cuts and contract renegotiations.
Diving Deeper:
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), spearheaded by Elon Musk under President Donald Trump's administration, has made a bombshell discovery regarding federal spending. According to the agency, $4.7 trillion in payments were funneled through the U.S. Treasury without clear tracking due to an often-missing Treasury Access Symbol (TAS). This identifier, which links government expenditures to specific budget items, was optional in the federal system--resulting in payments that were nearly impossible to trace.
DOGE announced the finding on X, explaining that the TAS field has now been made mandatory for all federal payments. "As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going," the agency stated. This change is expected to bring a new level of transparency to federal finances, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are properly accounted for.
The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration decided to resign rather than to permit the president's appointed man to look into their books.
The resignation of SSA's acting commissioner, Michelle King highlights the growing tension between career federal bureaucrats and the Trump administration's aggressive push to root out government fraud. King stepped down over the weekend following a dispute with DOGE, the cost-cutting initiative led by Elon Musk that has been embedded in various federal agencies, including SSA.
DOGE staffers reportedly sought access to SSA's extensive database, which contains work histories, banking details, and medical records of millions of Americans. While DOGE has been conducting similar probes at the Treasury Department, King's abrupt departure signals potential resistance within SSA to oversight efforts aimed at identifying fraud and inefficiencies.
Good.