We are all in this together...
The host of MSNBC’s flagship weekend show disputed Elon Musk’s assurances that everyone working at the Department of Government Efficiency had been properly vetted.
“Okay, I’ll say he’s full of crap!” network host Michael Steele exclaimed on Saturday’s episode of The Weekend in response to a clip from the Tesla founder’s recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
The cuts, highlighted on an earlier version of the “wall of receipts” posted by Elon Musk’s team, contained mistakes that vastly inflated the amount of money saved.
The “wall of receipts” is the only public ledger the organization has produced to document its work. The scale of that ledger’s errors — and the misunderstandings and poor quality control that seemed to underlie them — has raised questions about the effort’s broader work, which has led to mass firings and cutbacks across the federal government.
Read more on the New York Times (archive.ph)
The CIA is conducting a formal review to assess any potential damage from an unclassified email sent to the White House in early February that identified for possible layoffs some officers by first name and last initial and could’ve exposed the roles of people working undercover, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
Career officials have also moved to mitigate what they see as potential counterintelligence risks stemming from the work done by Musk’s DOGE.
When Bessent signed off on access for DOGE officials to the government’s payment system, intelligence officials immediately flagged that the system isn’t just used for Social Security and Medicaid payments. It’s also used to funnel intelligence community payments — including the CIA’s — whether through front companies or real commercial entities that the intelligence community partners with on sensitive programs.
“Literally every payment the US government makes goes through that system. Every. One,” one source familiar with the matter told CNN.
The CIA late last week moved to fire more than a dozen officers for working on diversity issues, in what amounts to a deeply unusual round of mass firings at the agency, according to court filings and current and former officials familiar with the effort.
In a court filing, the government suggested that further dismissals may be imminent, and a current official familiar with the matter confirmed that agency officials are in the process of working on recommendations for further cuts. A final number has not yet been decided, that person said.
Some of the fired officers are now challenging their dismissal in court on the grounds that it violated federal workforce laws, and a federal judge in Virginia is expected to hold a hearing to weigh a temporary restraining order against the move on Monday. Kevin Carroll, a lawyer and former CIA officer, said he represents 21 officers who have been fired.
