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Acting Social Security Chief Confirms He Won’t Shut Down Agency After DOGE Court Order

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Performing Commissioner Lee Dudek launched an announcement after suggesting he might have to shut down the company after a choose dominated towards DOGE this week.

The appearing Social Safety Administration (SSA) head referred to as off shutting down the company after he beforehand stated he would accomplish that within the aftermath of a brief court docket order that blocked Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) officers from accessing knowledge.

In an announcement Friday, appearing Commissioner Lee Dudek stated that he’s “not shutting down the company” and that President Donald Trump “helps conserving Social Safety places of work open and getting the fitting examine to the fitting particular person on the proper time.” Workers on the company will proceed their work below the choose’s order, he added.

The choose had given the company “clarifying steering” about its non permanent order associated to DOGE staff on the company, in keeping with his assertion.

On March 20, U.S. District Decide Ellen Lipton Hollander barred DOGE from accessing Social Safety programs that include personally identifiable data and accused the group of in search of fraudulent exercise that won’t exist.

Within the aftermath of the order, Dudek advised a number of media retailers that he could also be compelled to close down the SSA.

“My anti-fraud workforce could be DOGE associates. My IT employees could be DOGE associates,” he advised Bloomberg Information final week. “Because it stands, I’ll comply with it precisely and terminate entry by all SSA workers to our IT programs.”
He then advised the outlet, “Actually, I need to flip it off and let the courts determine how they need to run a federal company.” Individually, he advised the Washington Put up in an unique interview that “every part within the company” entails personally identifiable data and that “except I get clarification, I’ll simply begin to shut it down. I don’t have a lot of a selection right here.”
His feedback prompted a letter from Hollander to counsel of the SSA and the plaintiffs concerned within the case. She wrote that she was conscious of media studies that contained Dudek’s statements about doubtlessly closing down the SSA within the wake of her order.

“Workers of SSA who are usually not concerned with the DOGE Crew or within the work of the DOGE Crew are usually not topic to the Order,” Hollander wrote on March 21 in a letter to attorneys concerned within the case. “Furthermore, any suggestion that the Order might require the delay or suspension of profit funds is wrong,” she added.

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Hollander acknowledged that her order “applies solely to SSA workers engaged on the DOGE agenda” and doesn’t have any influence on SSA operations. “The truth is, if others at SSA are concerned with DOGE, as Mr. Dudek appears to assert,” she stated, “then I used to be misled by counsel for the federal government.”

Her ruling Thursday was in response to a grievance filed by a union and different plaintiffs within the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Maryland, who had argued that DOGE’s exercise is an influence seize and overreach.

They wrote that DOGE’s exercise within the company liable for sending out Social Safety and Social Safety Incapacity Insurance coverage funds each month to tens of millions of individuals may doubtlessly expose the private knowledge of tens of millions of People.

Legal professionals for the Trump administration argued that the unions and different teams who filed the grievance lacked the standing to take action and have been unable to offer proof that they might face imminent hurt if DOGE continues to entry the company’s knowledge.

Created by President Donald Trump quickly after he took workplace and led by tech billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk, DOGE was set as much as root out fraud, abuse, and waste contained in the federal authorities. Nevertheless, the group has confronted plenty of lawsuits in latest weeks, although judges haven’t all the time agreed with the plaintiffs.

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