Over the weekend, David Lebryk, the highest-ranking official at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, was fired for refusing to grant full access to payment systems to new employees of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), controlled by Elon Musk. Lebryk, with three decades of service in the institution, was one of the few with permissions for those systems, managed by the so-called Fiscal Service Office, which control the flow of over six trillion dollars annually to households, businesses, and other sectors across the country. This is where funds for Social Security and Medicare programs, federal personnel salaries, payments to government contractors and grant beneficiaries, or tax refunds originate, among tens of thousands of other functions. He was the only one standing between Musk and full access. He refused, so he was placed on administrative leave before being forced into retirement. The planet's richest man now has access to the data while attention is focused on tariffs lasting less than 24 hours, exits of all kinds, and various distractions.
Last week, Trump ordered the freezing of up to three trillion dollars in federal funds, but the courts prevented it, as there has been a law since the 1970s, when Richard Nixon attempted something similar, that prohibits the president from unilaterally deciding on funds already approved by Congress. DOGE is not a government department but a team within the administration, but now that its subordinates have access to the payment system, they could seek a way to freeze public funding, and according to several national media reports, Musk has already ordered his engineers to find ways to cut off the flow of money to programs that he and President Donald Trump oppose.
According to Wired, which has identified about a dozen, Musk's lieutenants executing his orders are young people in their early 20s, without completed degrees and no government experience. They were employees or interns at his companies or those of Peter Thiel, another tech guru once liberal and now leading the crusade to take control of the State. The administration has not explained who works for DOGE, who pays their salaries, what contracts they may have terminated, or addressed what could be obvious conflicts of interest, with Musk having billions of dollars committed to public administrations. Tom Krause, a Musk ally and CEO of the Cloud Software Group, led the takeover of the Treasury, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The war is total. The team of the world's richest man, who has not been appointed or ratified by the Senate, took over the Office of Personnel Management on January 20, the day Trump took office. They moved the sofa beds to the fifth floor of the agency's headquarters, which can only be accessed with a security card or an escort. The agency, among other things, manages a huge database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, evaluations, addresses, salary scales, and seniority of government workers. Useful when you want to get rid of at least 10% of the total. "The government must be purged of spending on Marxist equity social engineering, transgenderism, and the Green New Deal," said a memorandum from the budget office, headed by Russell Vought, one of the main ideologues of this revolution.
Last Tuesday, Elon Musk visited the General Services Administration with one of his children, an agency that acts as the federal government's landlord since it has millions of square meters of public buildings that are going to be put up for sale. Trump has not forgiven the officials of the GSA who testified years ago in the case of Russian infiltration in his administration.
On Saturday night as well, two senior security officials from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were placed on administrative leave after refusing to grant access to Musk's employees. DOGE's vanguard wanted permissions to control the agency's security systems and personnel files, and even classified information, which only those with security clearances and a specific reason can access, which was not the case.
On Sunday, Musk used the most powerful megaphone on the planet, his social network, to attack the agency repeatedly, accusing it of being a "criminal organization" that "using your tax dollars, funded research on biological weapons, including COVID-19, which killed millions of people", or the production of drugs in Afghanistan and that for all that "it's time for it to die." Earlier, almost 100 senior USAID officials had been suspended after being accused of trying to circumvent Trump's executive order on foreign aid. "They are led by a group of radical lunatics, and we are kicking them out," Trump said from Florida on Sunday night. This Monday, both of them are saying that the agency, which handles up to 40 billion dollars, had to be shut down immediately.
The USAID website, like up to 8,000 other government sites according to an analysis by the New York Times, was disconnected over the weekend, in part to remove all references to equality and diversity programs, which obsess Trump and Musk. To the point, parodically, that in some cases words like equality or equity were removed when they were technical references, for example, to taxes. "The purges have eliminated information on diseases, epidemics, vaccines, veteran care, hate crimes, and scientific research, among many other topics. Some government agencies seem to have removed entire sections from their websites, while others are missing only a few pages."
The war continues on all fronts. The Department of Education has placed over 50 employees from its offices on administrative leave since Friday, as part of what unions consider a full-fledged purge. The notifications cited guidelines from the Office of Personnel Management, which had ordered all agencies to submit plans to dismiss staff associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
The Department of Justice has fired all employees, lawyers, prosecutors, and staff who had any role in the investigations of the two criminal cases for which Trump was investigated by special counsel Jack Smith, who was also forced to resign before the new administration took office. "Career bureaucrats cannot violate the president's legitimate orders of the United States. They answer to the president, and he answers to the people. It's really not that complicated," boasted Vice President J.D. Vance on Monday. In an unprecedented statement, the federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia wrote to Musk this Monday to say that "any threat, confrontation, or other actions that in any way impact" what his people are doing will be investigated by his office as that "may violate numerous laws."
Similarly, the purge within the FBI is brutal. New senior officials have been dismissed even before the Senate confirms the nominee for the new director. National and regional offices have been ordered to provide the names, positions, and functions of any agent or employee who was even tangentially involved in the investigations into the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Those involved, up to 6,000, could be fired or face retaliation for doing their job.
President Trump fired 18 federal government inspectors general in his first week. Among them were the heads of the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Labor. Despite Congress strengthening protections for inspectors general against wrongful dismissals when it amended a specific law in 2022. The rule states that there must be a 30-day notification between the moment the White House informs Congress of its intention to dismiss an inspector general and the moment that inspector is relieved, and substantiated reasons are required.
One of the first executive orders, signed on the same day of the inauguration, announced the closure of all diversity and equality programs (DEI in English) and the dismissal of all employees dedicated to them.
The persecution extends beyond the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Transportation. The enforcers of the orders have traced the records and are dismissing, one by one, those who have also worked at any time in the past on related initiatives, even if they have been in other positions within the federal government for months or even years.
The department led by Marco Rubio will replace all political ambassadors appointed by Joe Biden, something common as they usually resign automatically. However, Republicans are finalizing lists to go further, targeting diplomats or administrators they consider not aligned with the president's agenda. One of the new high-ranking officials sent an email on Friday to tens of thousands of employees, giving them a few hours to remove any reference to their pronouns from their emails, invoking a law protecting women.
As part of the plans to cut and eliminate what is considered a hostile force to the "deep state," Trump and Musk have offered officials an incentivized departure, with the option to leave their positions now with pay until September or risk being fired. Up to 30% of those threatened are military veterans. Musk claims that his government purge will help save two trillion dollars, but the total payroll of federal employees is only 271 billion dollars.
The head of the Coast Guard, Admiral Linda L. Fagan, the first woman to lead a branch of the armed forces, was immediately dismissed because she advocated for an "excessive focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion," according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. In a childish gesture, it has also been ordered to remove the portrait of General Mark A. Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from a hallway full of portraits of other individuals who held that position at the Pentagon. Milley, who worked closely with Trump in his first term in the White House, now describes him as a "fascist."
On his first night in the White House, in one of his characteristic social media messages, Trump announced that they were busy "identifying and removing over a thousand presidential nominees from the previous Administration" who are not aligned with his vision to "make America great again."
Thus, he said, his message "serves as an official termination letter" for four individuals, including Spanish chef José Andrés, whom he has targeted since his first term. "José Andrés from the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council. Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars, and [former Atlanta mayor] Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President's Export Council: YOU'RE FIRED!" he announced, echoing the language he used on The Apprentice, his television show.
Each new administration appoints key positions in federal agencies and supervisors. However, Republicans have been preparing for an absolute takeover, placing allies and supporters everywhere.
Trump has also fired numerous officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), despite holding their positions since his first term between 2016 and 2020 or having been recently confirmed by the Senate until 2028. This includes Rohit Chopra from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.