Democrats ask for an investigation into DOGE's access to Treasury's payment systems

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers are seeking a Treasury Department investigation of the access that Elon Musk's team was given to the government's payment system, citing “threats to the economy and national security, and the potential violation of laws protecting Americans’ privacy and tax data.”

The lawmakers sent letters Friday to Treasury's deputy inspector general and the acting inspector general for tax administration, in addition to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., writing to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The letters laid out their concerns over a lack of transparency and public accountability about the access being granted to the federal government's financial plumbing.

The payments system handles trillions of dollars over the course of a year, including tax refunds, Social Security benefits and much more. That raises questions about whether the review by the tech billionaire Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is legal.

The lead writers of the inspectors general letter, Warren and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., have sounded multiple alarms about a review that largely remains shrouded from public scrutiny.

Democrats' efforts to push back against spending cuts that President Donald Trump is seeking through DOGE could lead to a Washington showdown with possible broader repercussions. Any breakdown in the system could mean missed payments to people or even the sharing of sensitive personal data.

In Warren's letter to Bessent, she says the secretary has “deflected and avoided key questions" so far and “provided information that appears to be flatly contradicted by new public reports.”

“The American people — including millions of families who are worried that you have jeopardized their Social Security payments, their Medicare payments, their local programs, and their economic security deserve straight answers,” Warren wrote.

A letter requesting an investigation would typically be sent to Treasury’s inspector general. However, Trump’s recent firing of about 17 independent inspectors general at government agencies leaves an oversight hole.

The Treasury Department has maintained that the review is merely about assessing the integrity of the system and that no changes to it are being made. But according to two people familiar with the process, Musk's team began its inquiry looking for ways to suspend payments made by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Trump and Musk are attempting to shutter.

Separately, labor unions and advocacy groups have sued to block the payments system review from proceeding because of concerns about its legality. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Thursday restricted DOGE’s read-only access of Treasury's payment systems to two workers, one of them Tom Krause, who now appears on the Treasury Department website as performing the functions of fiscal assistant secretary.

Also signing the letters were Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

President Donald Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - Elon Musk speaks at a presidential inauguration event on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

LONDON (AP) — Political opposition leaders in the United Kingdom have called for a human rights activist to be stripped of his citizenship over past social media posts allegedly containing violent and antisemitic language within days of the dual national returning to Britain after years in Egyptian prisons.

The leaders of the Conservative and Reform parties also demanded the deportation of Alaa Abd el-Fattah following the discovery of tweets from more than a decade ago in which he allegedly endorsed killing “Zionists’’ and police.

“The comments he made on social media about violence against Jews, white people and the police, amongst others, are disgusting and abhorrent,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote Monday in the Daily Mail newspaper.

Abd el-Fattah on Monday apologized for the tweets while saying some had been taken out of context and misrepresented.

The activist has spent years in Egyptian prisons, most recently for allegedly spreading fake news about the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. He returned to the U.K. on Friday after Egyptian authorities lifted a travel ban that had forced him to remain in the country since he was released in September.

But he immediately became embroiled in controversy after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” that Abd el-Fattah was back in the UK and had been reunited with his family.

That triggered the republication of messages on the social media platform Twitter, now X, that were described as antisemitic, homophobic and anti-British.

Abd el-Fattah expressed shock at the turn of events in a statement released Monday.

“I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship,’’ he said.

The remarks were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises such as the wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza and the rise of police brutality against young people in Egypt, Abd el-Fattah said.

“Looking at the tweets now — the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning — I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise,’’ he said in the statement.

But that has not staunched the flow of anger from politicians.

Reform Party leader Nigel Farage described the posts as “abhorrent” and said they showed Abd el-Fattah held views that are “completely opposed to our British way of life.”

“It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr. elFattah (sic) should not be allowed into the UK,” Farage wrote in a letter to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who oversees immigration matters.

FILE - Pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was in prison for almost all of the past 12 years, speaks to his friends at his home after he got a presidential pardon, in Cairo, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Elfiqi, File)