Five former treasury secretaries are taking aim at the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk for alleged overreach and abuse of powers by the new White House administration.
What Happened: Musk has been put in charge of leading the Department of Government Efficiency by President Donald Trump.
In the role, Musk has promised to find billions to trillions of dollars in savings for U.S. taxpayers. The billionaire has been granted access to many parts of the government, leading to pressure from the public and some members of Congress on alleged overreach.
Five former treasury secretaries believe Musk's actions could bring harm to the country's payments system.
Here are the five former treasury secretaries who co-authored a new op-ed in the New York Times and their years of service in the role:
- Robert Rubin: 1995 to 1999 (Bill Clinton)
- Lawrence Summers: 1999 to 2001 (Bill Clinton)
- Timothy Geithner: 2009 to 2013 (Barack Obama)
- Jacob Lew: 2013 to 2017 (Barack Obama)
- Janet Yellen: 2021 to 2025 (Joe Biden)
"Our roles were multifaceted. We sought to develop sound policy to advance the president's agenda and represent the economic interests of the United States on the world stage. But in doing that, we recognized that our most fundamental responsibility was the faithful execution of the laws and Constitution of the United States," the former secretaries said.
The five said that they are "fortunate" that there were no unlawful attempts to "undermine the nation's financial commitments" during their time in office.
"Regrettably, recent reporting gives substantial cause for concern that such efforts are underway today."
The former treasury secretaries say the nation's payment system is operated by a small group of nonpartisan civil servants, a position that they allege has been compromised by the political actors of the "so-called Department of Government Efficiency."
The op-ed alleges that the political actors have not gone through the same ethics rules as civil servants and have potential financial conflicts of interest in their roles.
"They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data – like Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power subjects America's payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries."
The former treasury secretaries write that the legislative branch has the "sole authority" to pass laws concerning how and where federal dollars are spent. The Treasury Department is not supposed to make determinations about which promises it will keep of the laws passed by Congress. The op-ed cites quotes from Supreme Court justices who agreed with this logic previously.
The op-ed said the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president does not have the power to withhold federal funds that Congress authorized previously when a similar challenge was made by the Richard Nixon administration.
"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."
Among the federal funds that have been authorized by Congress include Social Security checks, Veterans benefit checks, Medicare reimbursements, Federal worker payments and payments for members of the military.
"People often rely on these funds for survival, making any risk of their cutoff or delay existential."
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Why It's Important: The op-ed stated that current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed no federal payment blocks have occurred yet.
"We hope this commitment stands. It is how the framers intended it when they designed a government with checks and balances that gave the executive branch a host of powers, but provided for elected members of Congress, and Congress alone, the authority to levy taxes and spend federal funds," the former treasury secretaries wrote.
In a tweet, Summers said the guest essay was made due to being alarmed about the risk of political control of federal payments. The tweet prompted a response from Musk.
"Listen Larry, we need to stop government spending like a drunken sailor on fraud & waste or America is gonna go bankrupt. That does mean a lot of grifters will lose their grift and complain loudly about it. Too bad. Deal with it," Musk tweeted.
Summers acknowledged that Musk is right to be focused on stopping fraud and grift, but said he hopes the Treasury Department and DOGE comply with the law and offered to work with the billionaire.
On Tuesday morning, Trump posted a message on his Truth Social platform saying billions of dollars of fraud, waste and abuse have already been found while investigating the "incompetently run Government."
"Now certain activists and highly political judges want us to slow down, or stop. Losing this momentum will be very detrimental to finding the TRUTH, which is turning out to be a disaster for those involved in running our Government. Much left to find." Trump said.
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