Press Releases

Mr. Chairman, holding a hearing today on “Reining in the Administrative State” is a little bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

As we speak, Elon Musk and his band of near-teenaged accomplices are systematically working their way through the executive branch, knocking down agency after agency, while undermining the rule of law and shredding the Constitution along the way.

Musk and his team have unprecedented access to our most sensitive and personal data. They have gained access to extremely sensitive tax information at the IRS, highly restricted government records on millions of federal employees and their families from the Office of Personnel Management, and personal data related to health insurance plans, workplace health and safety investigations, child labor, and more from the Department of Labor. And this is just what we have learned through news articles, because all of these actions have been taken without any transparency to the American people.

Musk and his team have accessed at least 18 agencies and untold amounts of sensitive data that is attractive to bad actors here and abroad. But Musk and his assistants are not just accessing this data, they are feeding it into AI models, downloading it onto commercial servers, and possibly taking it off premises. Because Musk and his team also can change our government systems, not only is the personal information of millions of Americans at risk, but also the systems that ensure our safety and core government functions.

For example, Musk and his team have accessed core systems at the Federal Aviation Administration. Experts have warned that, “even a small systems disruption could cause mass grounding of flights, halt in global shipping, or worse, downed planes.” Officials at the FAA warn that going into those systems without an in-depth understanding could result in death and economic harm to our nation.

Nevertheless, Musk indicated that the DOGE team will aim to make “rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.” Just in the past few weeks we have seen what happens when mistakes are made in our air traffic control system when a Black Hawk helicopter ran into a commercial flight causing dozens of deaths. Musk and his team are opening us up to more deaths and critical economic harm.

But Elon Musk is not content just to cause massive disruption and expose us to greater risk. No, he is also using his unfettered access to our agencies and our data to benefit himself.

For example, the Department of Labor was investigating workplace abuse allegations at three Musk-owned companies, the Boring Company, SpaceX, and Tesla. So, Musk and his team invaded the agency and gained access to their information on current and past investigations.

Just days before they got access to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Musk finalized a deal with Visa to process peer-to-peer payments for a wallet feature on X. Because the CFPB polices such payment systems, the data Musk and his team accessed could give his new X wallet feature a competitive advantage in the market. And, as a kicker, the Trump Administration instructed the CFPB to halt work—thus ensuring that there is no one to keep Musk’s new payment system from exposing personal data or enabling fraud.

Never mind that the CFPB has produced almost 20 billion dollars in consumer relief and has put millions back in the pockets of Americans—the agency had information Musk needed, so he got it.

The agency would have enforced the law, with a likely impact on his wallet, so the agency’s work was halted instead.

Serious concerns have been raised about whether the people accessing this data—many of them barely past college—have the appropriate training and vetting necessary to handle such sensitive data. This is an active data breach on a scale we have never experienced before but this time, the threat is coming from inside the house. Imagine what domestic criminals or foreign adversaries could do if they got their hands on this information. This is a clear and present danger, and yet our Republican colleagues do nothing.

In addition to these structural attacks on the executive branch, the Trump Administration is also reclassifying civil servants as political employees that can be replaced with flunkies beholden to Donald Trump, imposing loyalty tests on national security officials, and encouraging tens of thousands of employees to resign with promises it has no authority to make.

As a result, it is hollowing out the workforce and the decades of experience and technical expertise that comes with it.

Without any authorization from Congress, the Trump Administration has also taken several other actions that have thrown the federal government into chaos. It attempted to impose a “temporary funding freeze” across much of the federal government that a judge has already ruled unlawful; it fired duly appointed Democratic members of independent agencies to deprive these agencies of a working quorum and essentially prevent them from fulfilling their missions; and to ensure that no one is able to hold the administration accountable from within the executive branch, the President fired more than a dozen inspectors general without following the statutory requirements for doing so.

These actions are as unconstitutional as they are dangerous.

While we witness these incursions on the rule of law and the Constitution, my Republican colleagues do nothing.

In fact, they cheer on Elon Musk as he usurps congressional authority and arrogates unprecedented power to himself. When Joe Biden was president, we heard stirring speeches from our Republican friends about the need to assert our Article One authority. We were told that the Biden Administration was guilty of dangerous overreach when it attempted to help people drowning in student loans, or protected our communities from gun violence, or helped shield consumers from corporate abuse. But now, that is ancient history.

Now, they aid and abet shadow-president Musk while he bulldozes his way through the administrative state untethered to any congressional statute or authorization.

There is no check and no balance from the Republican Congress. Just feckless inaction because it serves their purposes. They know that undermining the critical protections provided by our agencies would be deeply unpopular, so they are content to abdicate their responsibilities and let Elon Musk do their dirty work.

I urge my Republican colleagues to stand up for this institution and for the people they represent. I yield back.