FILE- This June 6, 2019, file photo shows the U.S. Treasury Department building at dusk in Washington. The U.S. Treasury has removed Vietnam and Switzerland from the list of nations labeled as currency manipulators, reversing a decision made by the Trump administration in December. In it’s semi-annual report to Congress on currency manipulation, the first under the Biden administration, the U.S. Treasury Department said Friday, April 16, 2021, that no country currently meets the U.S. criteria. It said, however, that Vietnam, Switzerland, as well as Taiwan, will be placed under enhanced monitoring for their recent actions. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
The group wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on Monday, sounding the alarm on the risks associated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency accessing sensitive Treasury payment systems.
“These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants,” said former Treasury heads Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew and Janet Yellen in the Times op-ed.
“We are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy,” they said.
FILE -Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen listens during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing, Wednesday, April 6, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
This March 1, 2016 file photo shows U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew at a news conference in Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
They also issue a dire warning about the notion of selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments, which Musk regularly threatens on X, calling it “a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default.”
After DOGE recently gained access to sensitive Treasury data including Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems, a federal judge over the weekend ordered that the Treasury Department should block access to anyone “other than civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties” from its payment system, noting the risk of “irreparable harm.”