February 1, 2026
Remember when DOGE went in to all those government departments last year and got access to all kinds of government databases including those that store your sensitive personal information? Of course they were sued and the US government – at the time — was like what’s the big deal? We’re just looking for waste fraud and abuse? Remember that?
Well – now in this shocking federal court document the Trump administration admits their original statements were inaccurate. And now they’re admitting that not only did DOGE and Elon Musk’s employees tap into the social security administration’s data base which includes your personal information – but they’re admitting they copied that data, retained that data and among many other things signed an agreement with an outside political advocacy group that an intent to overturn election results. No. I’m not kidding. So now what?
Ok – WTF. What is going on? Well – remember back in February of 2025 when DOGE was making all those headlines — the AFL-CIO which is one of the largest labor unions in the country sued the social security administration. The lawsuit claims the SSA unlawfully allowed DOGE to access, use and disclose sensitive personal data belonging to Americans without legal authorization, proper guardrails and then claims the Trump administration lied to the court about what they were doing. The Trump administration vehemently denies that –and says DOGE’s access to all these government departments and your sensitive information was completely lawful because of President Trump’s executive order and DOGE was accomlishing the mission of rooting out “waste fraud and abuse.” They also say they never lied to the court because they fully believed what they were saying was true – at the time. But now – they filed this extremely rare “notice of corrections to the record” admitting to what doge was actually doing.
According to their court filing, they say in March of 2025 a political advocacy group – which is not named – contacted two members of the social security administration’s doge team. They asked these DOGE employees to analyze state voter rolls that the advocacy group had obtained. The advocacy group’s stated aim was to find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain states. Then on March 24th 2025 one of those DOGE team members in his capacity as a social security administration employee signed a “voter data agreement” with the political group. The US government basically says this DOGE employee went rouge and signed this agreement without the knowledge or approval of SSA officials. But curiously – the Trump administration can’t determine whether that doge employee actually transmitted that sensitive social security information to the political group.
So the government is saying to the court – this DOGE employee was actively in contact with the political group, definitely signed an agreement with a political group to access sensitive personal social security information about Americans on behalf of this political group who told that doge employee they were looking to overturn election results – but the government isn’t really sure if the doge employee actually handed the data over. In a footnote of the court filing – the government says “email communications reviewed by SSA suggest that DOGE team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls, but SSA has not yet seen evidence that SSA data were shared with the advocacy group.”
But the US government found these DOGE employees conduct so egregious that in December of 2025– they referred them for prosecution of federal crimes to the US office of special counsel for violating the |Hatch act. The Hatch act prohibits federal, DC., and certain state/local employees from engaging in partisan political activity while on duty. There is no indication that the department of justice is following through with any hatch act charges against these DOGE employees.
But this incident with the political advocacy group isn’t the only thing the trump administration admits to in this extraordinary filing. This short 7 page document also says that on March 3rd of 2025 one doge member accessed what’s known as personally identifiable information or (PII) from the social security database and emailed an encrypted file containing that PII including names and addresses of about 1,000 people to among others Steve Davis. Who’s that? Steve Davis has worked for Elon Musk for decades – he was one of Musk’s top lieutenants and he was the defacto day-to-day head of DOGE…at least until he left in May. The PII data was also emailed to another DOGE member who was working inside the labor department. You might be thinking so what, why does an email of PII data matter? Well, because according to the 1974 Privacy act, you can’t do that. That law specifically protects all of the data the US government collects on all of us – especially PII data. It says that data can not be shared even between government agencies – unless certain strict exceptions apply. The plaintiffs say Steve Davis and that other DOGE employee at the labor department do not work for the social security administration and sending them that PII data is a clear violation of the privacy act. The Trump administration says there was no violation because the file was encrypted.
And the last admission the Trump administration makes in this court filing is that they admit to violating the judge’s restraining order. They say on the morning of March 24th 2025 one member of the DOGE team ran searches in the social security database for PII data. The problem with that is – four days before –on March 20th – the federal court judge in this case issued a temporary restraining order against the trump administration requiring them to revoke the access of doge employees to the social security systems – including PII data immediately. The Trump administration certified to the court that they had revoked DOGE’s access and that they had complied with the judge’s temporary restraining order. Except in this new correction of the record – 10 months later – the trump administration was like oops. We were wrong DOGE employees still had access to that data even though we told you judge that they didn’t.
So now what? What is the court going to do? The reality is this. There’s not a lot that can be done….at least not right now. In April the federal court judge in Maryland hearing this case – the same one that issued the temporary restraining order — issued a more permanent preliminary injunction against the Trump administration which blocked doge from having access to the social security database and PII. Of course the Trump administration appealed that ruling to the fourth circuit. But separately the Trump administration also filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and in late march on their shadow docket — supreme court put a stay on the Maryland judge’s preliminary injunction. Meaning, the Supreme Court said doge does not have to follow that order and they can’t be blocked from accessing the SSA databases and PII. The Supreme Court also took an unusual step — saying their stay is going to remain in place regardless if the fourth circuit agrees with the plaintiff. The fourth circuit heard oral arguments in this case in September – but the appellate judges basically said to the plaintiffs their hands were tied….and there was not much they could do about the plaintiff’s case because of the Supreme Court stay.
Well — just last week – AFL CIO –the plaintiffs – were like woah! Wait a minute how could all these decisions be made about this case by the Supreme Court and the fourth circuit if they don’t know what the Trump administration just admitted to the court doge was really doing? They filed this motion to the Maryland federal court saying they want the judge to make sure the 4th circuit sees these shocking correction to the record. The judge agreed and granted an order saying this new court filing from the trump administration admitting what was really happening with doge must included in the official court record and must be transmitted to the fourth circuit. So that eventually – if and when the supreme court hears the merits of this case – which they still have not decided they are going to do – but if they do — the record will be complete and they will hear what really happened.
Read the Notice to Correct the Record here.
