The performing commissioner of the Social Safety Administration now says he’s “not shutting down the company” after earlier suggesting he may accomplish that in the wake of a judge’s ruling limiting the Division of Authorities of Effectivity’s entry to delicate company information.
Leland Dudek, the performing head of the company, mentioned in a statement Friday he acquired “clarifying steering” in regards to the choose’s non permanent restraining order associated to DOGE actions.
“Subsequently, I’m not shutting down the company,” he mentioned within the assertion. “President Trump helps preserving Social Safety places of work open and getting the precise test to the precise individual on the proper time. SSA staff and their work will proceed beneath the [temporary restraining order].”
An indication for the U.S. Social Safety Administration is seen exterior its headquarters in Woodlawn, Md., on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc by way of Getty Photos)
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc by way of Getty Imag
In an order Thursday, U.S. District Choose Ellen Lipton Hollander blocked the company from granting personnel affiliated with DOGE entry to company programs containing personally identifiable info.
In a collection of interviews on Thursday and Friday, Dudek appeared to counsel that the choose’s ruling blocking DOGE from accessing SSA information would power him to pause Social Safety funds and block all staff from the company’s programs.
“My anti-fraud staff can be DOGE associates. My IT workers can be DOGE associates,” he mentioned to Bloomberg News on Thursday. “Because it stands, I’ll comply with it precisely and terminate entry by all SSA staff to our IT programs.”
He continued, “Actually, I wish to flip it off and let the courts determine how they wish to run a federal company.”
And in a separate Washington Post interview, he doubled down, suggesting “the whole lot within the company” offers with personally identifiable info, often known as PII.
“Every thing on this company is PII,” Dudek mentioned. “Until I get clarification, I’ll simply begin to shut it down. I don’t have a lot of a selection right here.”
The choose pushed again Friday in a letter to counsel, writing that “any suggestion that the Order could require the delay or suspension of profit funds is inaccurate.”
Within the letter, she wrote she was conscious of the information stories with Dudek’s feedback laying out his perception that just about all staff of SSA would fall inside the scope of her order and thus have their entry to the company’s IT programs terminated.
“Such assertions in regards to the scope of the Order are inaccurate,” the choose wrote. “Workers of SSA who aren’t concerned with the DOGE Workforce or within the work of the DOGE Workforce aren’t topic to the Order. … Furthermore, any suggestion that the Order could require the delay or suspension of profit funds is inaccurate.”
AARP was one in all a number of organizations that had blasted Dudek’s feedback threatening to shut the company.
“Social Safety has by no means missed a cost and AARP and our tens of thousands and thousands of members aren’t going to face by and let that occur now,” Senior Vice President of Campaigns John Hishta mentioned in a press release.
