Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday disputed Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters’ accusation that he enabled “strangers” to access data within his department.
Democrats have taken issue with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers accessing Treasury Department data. While Waters, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, referred to them as “strangers,” Bessent noted they were employees of the Treasury Department.
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“What you did was you let these strangers into our Treasury with access to all of the data, all of the personnel information,” Waters said. “And you just opened the door. Why’d you do that?”
“No ma’am. They were Treasury employees,” Bessent responded.
Waters appeared to particularly call out DOGE aide Marko Elez as she referenced a “25-year-old … who worked for [DOGE head] Elon Musk.” However, Bessent noted Elez “was a Treasury employee.”
Elez worked for the Treasury Department, according to Politico and NPR.
“He was a Treasury employee, as was Tom Krause, the senior person on the DOGE team,” Bessent said. “There were only two people and they were granted—”
Krause is the fiscal assistant secretary at the Treasury Department, according to the agency’s website.
“There were DOGE employees also, who you know,” Waters replied. “Were you aware that there were DOGE employees coming into our Treasury getting all of our personal information?”
Bessent repeated that those with access to the data were employees of his department.
The Treasury Department released a Feb. 4 statement that Treasury employees collaborating with Krause “will have read-only access” to data as DOGE worked to evaluate the agency’s “efficiency.”
“This is similar to the kind of access that Treasury provides to individuals reviewing Treasury systems, such as auditors, and that follows practices associated with protecting the integrity of the systems and business processes,” the statement continued.
Musk announced during an April Tesla earnings call that he intended to “significantly” scale back his role as head of DOGE, Axios reported.
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