It is a new judicial obstacle to the generalized offensive of Donald Trump against the federal administration: an American federal judge decided on Saturday February 8 from preventing Elon Musk teams from accessing the personal data of millions of Americans kept by the Treasury Department.
Judge Paul Engelmayer has suspended access to these personal and financial data to “any person appointed by political power, all special government agents” as well as “all government employees detached by an agency external to the Treasury”. He also ordered the billionaire Elon Musk, a great ally of Donald Trump, and his teams from the Commission to government efficiency (DOGE) to “immediately destroy all copies of the downloaded equipment”.
Decisions motivated by the risk of “irreparable damage” such as the “disclosure of sensitive and confidential information” and the “increased risk that the systems in question are more vulnerable than before to hacks”, he wrote. The suspension is worth until February 14, when a hearing will be held on the subject, it is specified in its order.
“Bigger threat”
This decision follows the legal action brought by the prosecutors general of 19 American states to prevent teams from the richest man in the world from accessing such information. According to them, the Trump administration violated the law by expanding access to sensitive data stored by the Treasury to the members of this commission created recently from scratch to slash in public spending, and not benefiting from the status of ministry.
Elon Musk collaborators took control of the American Treasury system, a strongly contested approach by elected democrats and unions, a few days ago. An US Treasury note mentioned “the greatest internal threat to which the tax office was ever confronted,” American media reported.
As the New York Timesthe risks in terms of cybersecurity in particular are not hypothetical: in December, the US Treasury declared in a letter to the Congress that a Chinese intelligence group had introduced itself into its systems and had stolen non -classified documents . What remind you that “this department, like the Pentagon and its subcontractors, the CIA and the White House-is in good place on the list of targets of Beijing”, writes the daily.
Reverse series
The boss of Tesla and SpaceX justified on his X network this intrusion as necessary to “stop the fraud and waste of taxpayers’ money”. He condemned a decision of a “militant” judge on Saturday and accused the Democrats of seeking to “hide the greatest fraud in the history of humanity”.
This judicial decision is the latest to test the general offensive of Donald Trump and Elon Musk against federal institutions. Two other judges suspended on Thursday and Friday a departure plan for civil servants on whom the government imposed an ultimatum, then the administration’s decision to place part of the employees of the International Development Agency (USAID) on the administrative holidays.
Despite these judicial complications, the president reaffirmed his objective and his confidence in Elon Musk on Friday to continue his charge in the other ministries, indicating that he has given him as an investigation “to go to education, to go to the Pentagon, that is to say in the army “. Donald Trump also called for the pure and simple abolition of USAID on Friday, which supports millions of people around the world.