A recent Justice Department filing has disclosed that employees affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) within the Social Security Administration (SSA) engaged in unauthorized communications and an agreement with a political advocacy group concerning voter data. The filing, submitted on January 16, 2026, corrects previous testimony and outlines potential breaches of federal policy and law, including two referrals made to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for potential Hatch Act violations.
Disclosures Regarding Data Agreement and Coordination
The Justice Department, representing the SSA, stated in its filing that two members of the SSA's DOGE team communicated with an unnamed political advocacy group in March 2025. This group's stated objective was to identify voter fraud and to challenge election results in specific states.
On March 24, 2025, one DOGE team member, acting in their capacity as an SSA employee, signed and sent a "Voter Data Agreement" to the advocacy group. While the court filing did not name the group, the organization True the Vote publicly requested DOGE investigate voter registration systems nationwide in early March 2025. True the Vote's stated aim was to combine federal records with external voter roll data to identify alleged irregularities.
Email communications suggest that DOGE team members may have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data for comparison with voter rolls. The SSA, however, has stated it has not found evidence that its data was shared with the advocacy group. The agency also reported that SSA employees outside the involved DOGE team members were reportedly unaware of these communications or the "Voter Data Agreement" until November 2025.
Procedural Breaches and Data Access
The agreement was not reviewed or approved through the SSA's established data exchange procedures. SSA officials disclosed that the agency learned about this agreement during an unrelated review in November 2025. The filing indicates that actions taken by the then-SSA DOGE Team were potentially outside SSA policy and/or noncompliant with a temporary restraining order issued by a District Court on March 20, 2025.
Further security failures were reported, including the use of unapproved third-party servers, specifically Cloudflare, by DOGE team members for data sharing. The SSA stated it has been unable to ascertain what information was transmitted or whether it remains on these servers. In one instance, a DOGE staffer reportedly sent an encrypted, password-protected file to Steve Davis, a senior adviser to the DOGE operation. The SSA believes this file contained the names and addresses of approximately 1,000 individuals derived from Social Security systems, though its contents could not be definitively confirmed.
The filing also disclosed that DOGE members had been granted access to several systems beyond what the agency had previously reported, including employee records, personnel access information, and shared workspaces designed for data exchange. On the morning of March 24, 2025, one DOGE team member conducted searches of personally identifiable information even after the agency believed it had revoked all such access in compliance with the court’s temporary restraining order. Full access was terminated by noon that day.
These disclosures contradict earlier assertions from the SSA, which had stated in March 2025 that the agency possessed "IT safeguards to ensure no private or commercial servers have been integrated with SSA systems" and in August that it was "not aware of any compromise to this environment."
Hatch Act Referrals and Litigation Context
The SSA made two Hatch Act Referrals to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in December 2025 regarding the conduct of the involved staffers. The Hatch Act prohibits government employees from using their positions for political activities.
This information emerged amid ongoing litigation concerning DOGE’s access to SSA systems, which contain sensitive data on millions of individuals. A federal judge had previously barred DOGE from accessing sensitive information, stating that the initiative "essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion." This restriction was subsequently lifted by the Supreme Court. Arguments regarding the reinstatement of that injunction were heard by the 4th Circuit in September, with a decision pending.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was an initiative operating under the Trump administration, established with the stated aim of identifying widespread social security fraud. According to the filings, the initiative did not ultimately identify any such fraud within the retirement and disability programs administered by the agency.