Democrats Respond To Musk ‘Illegally Seizing Power’ Over Treasury Payment System

Last updated: 2025/02/03 at 11:37 PM

Over the weekend, billionaire Elon Musk gained some level of access to the Treasury Department’s federal payment system, thanks to the pliancy of newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Fiscal Assistant Secretary David Lebryk, the highest ranking civil servant in the department, had reportedly fought Musk’s access since before the inauguration, and sought backup from Bessent last week. None came, and Lebryk abruptly retired Friday after being put on administrative leave.

Anonymous sources on Saturday sought to smooth the reporting on Musk’s takeover, telling Politico that Musk and his stooges’ access is “essentially a read-only operation,” and the New York Times that they “have yet to gain operational abilities and no government payments have been blocked.”

It’s a cold comfort, given that Musk and his allies now have access to the payment spigot through which runs trillions of dollars annually disbursed from various agencies, and which houses highly sensitive data on the millions of Americans who receive tax refunds and other federal payments, including Social Security checks.

“Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress,” he tweeted, part of a nonstop flurry of posts over the weekend.

Democrats are mustering a response. Both Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), ranking members on Senate Finance and Banking, respectively, sent Bessent letters seeking information about what exactly Musk’s control entails. “I am alarmed that as one of your first acts as Secretary, you appear to have handed over a highly sensitive system responsible for millions of Americans’ private data — and a key function of government — to an unelected billionaire and an unknown number of his unqualified flunkies,” Warren wrote, demanding answers to a list of questions including the names and functions of the systems Musk has been given access to.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wrote in a Monday letter to members that “legislation will be introduced shortly to prevent unlawful access to the Department of Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service payment system that contains highly confidential and personal information related to Social Security and Medicare recipients, taxpayers, households, nonprofits, businesses and federal contractors.”

The Congressional Progressive Caucus promised in a statement to fight the takeover “in the courts” and “on the House floor.”

“This is not some minor transgression, this is an illegal act,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said Monday. “They stormed into buildings, they shut down agencies illegally.”

Elsewhere, the administration’s moves have become alarming enough for at least one Democrat to take more substantive legislative action: Schatz announced Monday that he would inflict maximal delays in the confirmation of all of Trump’s State Department nominees until Musk’s attacks on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) stop. Musk staffers reportedly forced their way into the agency’s headquarters over the weekend, exposing classified information and shuttering the building to the agency’s employees Monday.

“Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payments systems of the United States Department of Treasury, but you don’t control the money of the American people,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said outside the USAID headquarters Monday afternoon, adding: “We don’t have a fourth branch of government called ‘Elon Musk,’ and that’s gonna become real clear.”

Or as Wyden put it: “They are seizing the tools they need for a coup.”