Home Democrats on the Homeland Safety Committee are asking the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) for an accounting of the Division of Authorities Effectivity’s (DOGE) impression on the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS).
“Since hijacking the U.S. Digital Service to establish DOGE, Elon Musk’s unqualified staff have fanned out across the Federal government. They have embedded themselves within departments and agencies, including DHS, to seize sensitive data, purge civil servants, and gut programs with no regard to the critical services they provide everyday Americans,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote within the lawmakers’ letter, which was additionally signed by Democratic Reps Eric Swalwell (Calif.), Seth Magaziner (R.I.), Shri Thanedar (Mich.), LaMonica McIver (N.J.), Lou Correa (Calif.) and Tim Kennedy (N.Y.).
The lawmakers search to determine the full variety of DHS workers who departed on account of DOGE, whether or not via a buyout ignited by DOGE chief Musk or a separate demand from the Workplace of Personnel Administration (OPM) to fireside probationary workers employed inside the final yr or two.
The letter asks GAO to “assess the legality of any guidance provided to DHS by DOGE” on which probationary workers to fireside.
It additionally asks for a breakdown of the information on terminations for every company inside DHS and “the resulting impact on the Department’s ability to conduct its mission.”
DHS beforehand fired not less than 400 individuals throughout the company.
The letter additionally asks GAO to overview the controversial weekend emails from Musk demanding that federal workers ship 5 bullet notes to recap their weeks.
The lawmakers ask GAO to find out who inside DHS evaluations the emails and whether or not anybody past DHS has seemed on the responses.
Additionally they increase questions concerning the extent DOGE employees had entry to DHS methods asking for “any data exfiltrated from DHS information systems to non-DHS information systems, determine the purpose for which the data were exfiltrated, and assess whether DOGE utilized appropriate controls to secure the data.”
