At a Glance
- Social Security DOGE team members signed a voter-data deal days after a judge blocked their access
- Staff used unapproved Cloudflare links to share sensitive records for 10 days in March
- The Justice Department says it still doesn’t know what data, if any, reached the political group
- Why it matters: Millions of Americans’ personal information may have been exposed in a partisan hunt for election fraud
The Justice Department told a Maryland federal judge Friday that members of the Department of Government Efficiency embedded at the Social Security Administration appear to have violated a court order by cutting a side deal with a political advocacy group seeking to overturn election results.
Court-Blocked Team Still Reached for Voter Files
According to a new government filing, SSA representatives informed investigators that an unnamed advocacy group approached two DOGE staffers in March with a request: analyze state voter rolls the group had collected in hopes of uncovering fraud.
The temporary restraining order barring DOGE from touching SSA data had taken effect only days earlier. Even so, one of the two staffers signed a “Voter Data Agreement” on March 24-four days after Judge Ellen Hollander’s order-then sent the executed contract back to the advocacy organization.
The Justice Department emphasized that no other SSA employees knew about the communications or the agreement, which never passed through the agency’s standard data-exchange review.
Secret Cloudflare Use Compounded Risk
A separate disclosure shows that from March 7 through March 17, DOGE team members shared SSA records by generating links inside the third-party server Cloudflare-platform not authorized for storing government data and outside SSA security protocols. The agency discovered the practice only during an unrelated November review, after DOGE had shut down.
Investigators have been unable to determine:
- Exactly which data sets were uploaded
- Whether any records remain on Cloudflare servers
- Whether personal information reached the advocacy group
Legal Fallout and Hatch Act Referrals
The Trump administration referred two Hatch Act violations to the Office of Special Counsel in late December. The filing does not name the accused employees.
Judge Hollander had initially frozen DOGE access in March, writing that the team was “engaged in a fishing expedition… without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack” while putting private data at risk. The Supreme Court lifted that order in June, allowing DOGE to resume its work.
Timeline of Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Feb 2025 | Government union sues to block DOGE access to SSA data |
| March 10 | Judge Hollander issues temporary restraining order |
| March 7-17 | DOGE staff share SSA data via Cloudflare links |
| March 24 | Staffer signs voter-data agreement, four days post-order |
| Nov 2025 | SSA learns of both breaches during separate review |
| Dec 2025 | Hatch Act referrals filed |
Musk’s Exit
Elon Musk, who led DOGE, announced on May 28 via X that his “scheduled time” in the Trump administration had ended.
