Kathrine Frich
New court filings have revealed previously undisclosed concerns about how sensitive government data was handled under Donald Trump’s administration.
The disclosures suggest internal safeguards may not have worked as intended.
Officials stress the situation is still being reviewed, but the revelations have raised fresh questions about oversight and political boundaries.
Court filing revelations
According to Politico, the Trump administration has acknowledged that members of the Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) may have misused Social Security data.
In recently released court documents, the Justice Department said some DOGE staff had broader access to sensitive information than previously stated.
The filing disclosed that two DOGE team members working inside the Social Security Administration (SSA) were in undisclosed contact with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn the election results in certain states”.
One of them signed an agreement that may have involved comparing Social Security data with state voter rolls.
Potential legal violations
Elizabeth Shapiro, a senior Justice Department official, said the SSA has cited the two DOGE employees for possible violations of the Hatch Act, which bars federal officials from using their positions for political activity.
Her statements appeared as part of formal “corrections” to earlier testimony by senior SSA officials during last year’s court battles over DOGE’s access to Social Security systems.
Shapiro said there is no evidence that other SSA employees knew about the contacts with the advocacy group or the so-called “Election Data Agreement”.
Unapproved data sharing
The documents also revealed that DOGE team members shared data through unapproved third-party servers.
Shapiro said this may have allowed access to information a court had ruled should be off-limits at the time.
While SSA previously said DOGE’s mission was limited to detecting fraud and modernising technology, Shapiro said the new information appears to undermine that description, at least in part.
It remains unclear whether any data was actually shared with the advocacy group, which was not named in the filing.
Cloudflare and access issues
Shapiro also disclosed that Steve Davis, a senior adviser to Elon Musk and the DOGE team, was copied on an email in March 2025 containing a password-protected file with private information on about 1,000 people. It is unknown whether Davis accessed the file.
The DOJ further revealed that DOGE members used Cloudflare to share data, despite it not being approved for storing SSA information.
Because Cloudflare is a third-party service, SSA officials said they could not determine exactly what data was shared or whether it still exists.
Shapiro added that one DOGE member briefly accessed private profiles after a court ban, while another had extended access to a call centre system containing sensitive data. Whether private information was viewed remains unknown.
The White House and SSA did not immediately comment on the disclosures.
Sources: Politico, US Justice Department court filings, Digi24.
