5 Former Treasury Secretaries Warn Of DOGE Activities: 'Gravely Concerning'

Five former Treasury secretaries are sounding the alarm, warning Americans that political interference in the nation's financial system threatens both democracy and economic stability.

The former secretaries all served under Democratic presidents.

Robert E. Rubin, Janet L. Yellen, Jacob J. Lew, Timothy F. Geithner and Lawrence H. Summers wrote a guest essay for the New York Times warning about Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) accessing the nation's payment system at the request of President Donald Trump.

They said the Trump administration may seek to "change the law and alter what spending Congress appropriates," they said it is "not for the Treasury Department or the administration to decide which of our congressionally approved commitments to fulfill and which to cast aside."

Elon Musk's DOGE team reportedly entered the Bureau of Fiscal Services payment system earlier this month.

"We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy," they wrote.

The former secretaries also raised concerns over financial conflicts of interest, data security, and the integrity of federal payments.

"A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch's commitment to respect Congress' power of the purse," the former secretaries wrote, emphasizing that the Treasury must not arbitrarily decide which federal payments to honor.

The former officials warned the public that any change from this norm has the potential to erode global trust in the nation's financial commitments.

In the meantime, federal judges challenged the Trump administration's actions by temporarily blocking its actions.

A federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing sensitive data from the Treasury.

The Treasury is facing a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees and other unions over a data-sharing deal with Musk's DOGE team.

DOGE is reportedly eyeing dismantling the Department of Education.