Five-Alarm Fire: How the Rule of Law was Laid to Rest in Washington on Jan. 31

Thursday morning, the 30th of January 2025, I woke to the Washington Post’s breaking news that Elon Musk and his minions were trying to get access to the U.S. Treasury’s payment systems, and its code. When a senior Treasury official of 30 years rightfully refused him access, Musk had him removed, and placed on administrative leave.  Who would stop him now, that he wouldn’t simply fire?  I was alarmed because they had tried to cut off federal payments on Monday of that week, but halted by an injunction.  It seemed they had found a way to disregard the court order blatantly.  Would he cut off social security, a longstanding goal of the right-wing?  Or would he end Medicaid and Medicare by simply turning off the spigot, and starving them of money, no legislative battle needed?

The Treasury payment systems disburse the money that keeps the country running.  It is the nation’s operations bank account.  It is — was — a system with layers of security and access restricted to just a few officials at Treasury, that processes social security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, grants to cities, state governments and NGOs, federal payroll, and even purchases and redemption of Treasury bonds.

It was a five-alarm fire for not only our financial entitlements and privacy, but for the rule of law itself.  Yet the press barely covered it, with a mention at 9:00 pm on the Thursday Rachel Maddow show. And the early coverage was whitewashed.  The Washington Post article called it a “rift”, rather than the attempted coup of our government’s finances that it is.  The muted coverage failed to raise public alarm.  Congress members and Senators received a huge number of calls from constituents but did nothing, nary a statement nor a press release.  

On Friday, midday, the New York Times reported that Musk had been granted access to the Treasury payment systems.  Game Over.  Musk could now control which payments go to whom, and when. He put his own employees to work coding in the system.  Neither he nor they were hired according to the process that keeps sensitive information secure.  They were all simply proclaimed employees by fiat and set about pillaging the system, seemingly searching for information, Musk posting pages of information on Twitter. 

Now an unelected sociopath with more national security flags than the Olympics opening ceremony has access to the financial spigot of the country, and the personal information of every American taxpayer, every Medicaid or Medicare recipient, all of us.  He started posting instances of “outrageous” expenses, calling them “money laundering”, like a Tech Bro puffing up nonexistent successes at a VC pitch:

While he was poking around and his young 19-25-year-old staff of six was recoding, the media slept until Sunday, two days after he had been given the keys to the kingdom.  Public outcry was thus suppressed until the boys had their fun.

Now Musk unlawfully and unconstitutionally has control of the heart of the Treasury, the money coming in and going out.  He faces no obstacles to continued access, nor is anyone trying to limit his use of the information.  The Secretary of Treasury, its supposed shepherd, Bennet, appointed by Trump, is the one who handed him the keys.  The FBI, which has jurisdiction over government intrusion and unauthorized access to records, was not called–who was left to call them?  And would the FBI officers have stopped him?  It’s doubtful, with the FBI under Trump’s control.  To close the loop on the coup, the U.S. Attorney in DC, appointed by Trump, with jurisdiction over Musk’s crimes, has vowed to “wield the law” against anyone who gets in Musk’s way.   

When the biggest heist in history happens in plain sight of the country, and half of the most powerful government in the world cannot stop it, but can only watch, because every authority along the chain who can stop it is instead protecting the criminal and facilitating the crime, the rule of law is lost.  The rule of law is a pillar of democracy, and accountability is central to the rule of law.  As of Wednesday, Feb 5th Musk has had unfettered access for six days to our money and sensitive personal information. Accountability is already moot.  The crime is committed, the harm is done and continues unchallenged.

When I woke up Saturday morning, my great-uncle was on my mind.   Perhaps he’d been in my dream, the way elders visit sometimes.  He passed away last year just shy of 100. In 1948 Masaji entered the second class of Indian foreign service officers after Independence as a diplomat.   He was a part of the birth of India’s democracy.  I hope that I will see the rebirth of ours.

Thursday, February 6 Update:  A judge has limited DOGE access to the Treasury as of Wednesday evening, February 5th.  Two of Musk’s employees will be allowed to stay at Treasury, but are relegated to return to “read-only” status, and Musk is no longer allowed access.  While it may sound like a triumph, the exceptions seem to render it rather toothless, other than keeping Musk out of Treasury employees’ faces–while he is rampaging through other agencies anyway.  WIRED reports that Marko Elez of the DOGE team at Treasury has privileges that allow him to navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files.  So his minion remains at Treasury, and the ruling is likely too late, unless we believe Musk that no changes have been made.  Thoughts and prayers on that one.

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Angana Shah, a lawyer who has worked in corporate law in Washington, D.C., and international rule of law promotion worldwide, now works as a lobbyist for social justice organizations in Michigan.