Treasury warned of 'insider threat risk' from Musk's DOGE access

Jake Bleiberg and Viktoria Dendrinou, Bloomberg News on Feb 7, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to the Treasury’s payment system poses an “unprecedented insider threat risk” and should be suspended immediately, according to an intelligence report prepared for the department by a contractor.

The stark warning was delivered to the Treasury Department in a weekly intelligence bulletin by government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The alarm about the Treasury’s payments system — essentially the federal government’s checking account — echoes concerns voiced by current and former federal officials as well as several Democratic lawmakers in recent days, who have argued that DOGE access could compromise the integrity of the portal.

The Treasury Department and Booz Allen did not immediately respond to requests to comment.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has defended giving two DOGE staffers access, saying they were there to conduct a broader review of spending and that there has been no “tinkering” with the data. In an interview with Bloomberg News, he said he had personally vetted a senior Treasury employee who is part of the DOGE effort, reiterating that the person has “read-only” access to federal payment data.

Yet even “read-only” access could pose risks, former Treasury officials have warned, a threat the Booz Allen Hamilton risk assessment also identified as major threat. The Washington Post first reported the warnings from Booz Allen.

“Continued access to any payments systems, even ‘read-only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of Fiscal Services has ever faced,” the contractor said in the report. The Bureau of Fiscal Services is the Treasury unit that manages all federal payments.

“If DOGE members have any access to payments systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems,” Booz Allen added.

The assessment comes a week after the Treasury’s most senior career official retired abruptly following tensions with DOGE team members over granting them access to the sensitive system that oversees trillions of dollars in federal government payments.

The official, who held the role of fiscal assistant secretary, has since been replaced by Tom Krause, one of the representatives of Musk’s team, even through the role has traditionally always been held by a career Treasury official, and not a political appointee.