Chuck Darwin<p>Federal judge pushes back on acting Social Security head over threat to close agency </p><p>Thursday evening Acting Social Security commissioner <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Leland" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Leland</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Dudek" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Dudek</span></a> threatened to bar Social Security Administration employees from accessing its computer systems in response to a judge’s order blocking the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing sensitive taxpayer data.<br>
💥Less than 24 hours later <br>— after the judge rejected his argument and the White House intervened <br>— Dudek is saying he was “out of line.”<br>
Dudek initially told news outlets, including in a Friday interview with The Washington Post, that the judge’s decision to bar sensitive data access to “DOGE affiliates” was overly broad and that to comply, he might have to block virtually all SSA employees from accessing the agency’s computer systems. </p><p>But Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, who issued the order, said in a letter that Dudek’s assertions “were inaccurate.”</p><p>Dudek first made his threat to close down the agency during a Bloomberg News interview Thursday night.<br>
Such a dramatic move to effectively shut down the agency would have been unprecedented in the agency’s history and would immediately begin halting benefit payments for millions of Americans.<br>
One plaintiff in the lawsuit at the heart of the ruling said Friday that the judge’s intention was clear <br>— and accused Dudek of acting “like a child who didn’t get his way.”<br><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/21/social-security-benefits-trump-doge/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">washingtonpost.com/politics/20</span><span class="invisible">25/03/21/social-security-benefits-trump-doge/</span></a></p>