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A former U.S. DOGE Service official allegedly stole confidential databases from the Social Security Administration with plans to hand them off to his new private employer with expectations for a handsome reward.
Instead, numerous federal agencies are investigating what would be one of the largest data breaches in U.S. government history.
My former Washington Post colleagues Meryl Kornfield, Lizza Dwoskin and Lisa Rein broke this explosive story on Tuesday.
A whistleblower filed a complaint about the alleged theft, and when the ex-DOGEr was confronted with legal questions about his actions, he reportedly said he expected to receive a presidential pardon.
I’m on vacation right now (hello from sunny Florida), but this story is so huge and so important that I wanted to be sure to bring it to you. More from Meryl, Lizza and Lisa’s report:
According to the disclosure, the former DOGE software engineer, who worked at the Social Security Administration last year before starting a job at a government contractor in October, allegedly told several co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information, and had at least one on a thumb drive. The databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names. The complaint does not include specific dates of when he is said to have told colleagues this information, but at least one of the alleged events unfolded around early January, according to the complaint. While working at DOGE, the engineer had approved access to Social Security data.
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The complaint alleges that after leaving government employment, the former DOGE member told colleagues he had a thumb drive with Social Security data and had kept his agency computer and credentials, which he allegedly said carried largely unrestricted “God-level” security access to the agency’s systems — a level of access no other company employee had been granted in its work with SSA.
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