Summary
Michelle King, the top Social Security official, resigned after refusing Elon Musk’s request for sensitive records, including Social Security numbers and bank data.
Trump appointed Leland Dudek as acting commissioner and nominated Frank Bisignano for the role.
Nancy Altman of Social Security Works condemned DOGE’s request, warning, “I don’t think you can overstate how serious this breach is.”
DOGE’s similar attempts at the IRS and Treasury have sparked legal challenges over privacy concerns.
It can be that they can’t stop something, but their position makes them responsible, so all they can do is step down and refuse to be implicated. Or they are ordered to do a thing and can’t refuse to do it, so they step down. Maybe it then turns out no one can do the thing due a few days while the person is replaced.
We never get the nuance of these resignations unless they make their resignation letters public (and even then…). Could even be they have 30 years of service or whatever and would like to step down with some benefits for their families before they get fired and lose everything. Yeah it would be nice if they fought, but I can’t begrudge a bureaucrat putting their family first in a losing fight.
So I tend to give them the benefit of doubt. In the end, they aren’t doing the easiest thing, which would just be to cooperate.
There’s also a lot of situations where there could be real legal implications via arcane administrative laws if they decide to sick the DOJ on them… We have seen already with Adams thing that they have no intention of the DOJ being impartial.
Very well put.