The Trump administration has officially acknowledged that two members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may have improperly accessed and distributed sensitive Social Security numbers. According to newly released court documents, these actions were allegedly tied to an attempt by an advocacy group to challenge election results in specific states during the previous year.
Unauthorized Data Access and Political Motives
The disclosure, first reported by Politico, stems from corrections provided by Social Security Administration (SSA) officials regarding ongoing legal disputes over DOGE’s access to federal data. While the identities of the two DOGE members and the external advocacy group remain undisclosed, the gravity of the potential breach is significant.
Justice Department official Elizabeth Shapiro detailed in the filings that the incident began in March 2025. An advocacy group approached DOGE team members at the SSA, requesting an analysis of acquired state voter rolls. The explicit objective of this collaboration was to identify evidence of voter fraud to influence election outcomes.
Security Breaches and Improper Agreements
Evidence suggests that one DOGE member, acting in their capacity as an SSA employee, formalized a “Voter Data Agreement” with the advocacy group. This move bypassed established legal boundaries, potentially exposing private information that a federal court had previously ruled off-limits.
The documents indicate that this sensitive data may have been shared on unauthorized “third-party” servers. Shapiro noted that while it remains unconfirmed whether the data transfer was completed, existing email records suggest the team was pressured to match SSA records against the group’s voter rolls.
Internal Accountability and Legal Fallout
The SSA has officially referred the two employees for investigation into potential violations of the Hatch Act, which strictly prohibits federal staff from utilizing their positions for political gain. Shapiro emphasized that, at present, there is no evidence that other SSA employees were complicit or aware of these unauthorized communications.
This incident follows a previous federal court order intended to restrict DOGE’s access to critical systems containing Social Security numbers, medical records, and tax information. These revelations align with earlier allegations from an SSA whistleblower, who claimed that the DOGE team had uploaded hundreds of millions of records to a highly vulnerable cloud server.