Three federal employee unions have accused the Treasury Department of giving Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency unlawful access to sensitive information.
In a lawsuit filed Monday, lawyers acting for the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the Service Employees International Union said Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, violated federal law when he shared the department’s data with DOGE.
The three union groups are represented by lawyers from the Public Citizen Litigation Group and the State Democracy Defenders Fund.
“Federal laws protect sensitive personal and financial information from improper disclosure and misuse, including by barring disclosure to individuals who lack a lawful and legitimate need for it,” the lawyers wrote. “In his first week as Treasury Secretary, defendant Bessent violated these restrictions.”
The lawsuit said Musk and DOGE staffers had sought access to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s records “for some time” but had been “rebuffed by the employee then in charge of the Bureau.” The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a department within the Treasury that oversees all federal payments and collections.
Bessent then put that employee on leave and gave DOGE’s staffers “full access” to the Bureau’s data and computers, the lawsuit said.