Trump-Musk Purge Scandal at Treasury Takes Yet Another Unsettling Turn

“This letter reeks of a cover-up,” Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, told me. “It doesn’t pass the smell test.”

The top-line claim in Treasury’s letter—which is a response to a January 31 letter from Wyden posing questions about Musk—is that this access is “read-only.” It says that a tech executive named Tom Krause—a member of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency—has this “read-only access” to “coded data” of Treasury’s payment systems, to undertake a review of the systems to enhance their efficiency and integrity.

“Expanding on efforts that began under the prior administration, Treasury has been undergoing a review of these systems,” the letter says, adding that this review “is not resulting in the suspension” of any payments that Treasury is making. Krause has been designated as a “Special Government Employee,” it continues, meaning he’s subject to some but not all ethics rules, and his review is being conducted “in coordination with veteran career Treasury officials.”