The battle inside the agency led the Justice Department to intervene to deny DOGE access to the data, even as the Trump administration installed and promoted DOGE-friendly leaders to dramatically cut back services at Social Security. It involved staff, from rank-and-file employees to senior leaders, including acting commissioner Leland Dudek, who was appointed to his position after displaying public loyalty to DOGE. And it eventually helped lead to the physical removal last week of a top career executive, who had been warned he would be fired if he kept refusing to let DOGE into Social Security’s systems.
At the same time, Dudek mistakenly let one of the DOGE representatives into a Social Security database last week, violating the court order, according to a person familiar with events who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. That error led a federal judge to summon Dudek for a hearing Tuesday at federal court in Baltimore, but the Trump administration said in a filing late Monday that he would no longer appear.
Dudek declined to comment. The Social Security press office did not respond to a request for comment.
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