Jan 2025 start of investigation OPM emails article

Wired cites its sources as saying that Corcos wants the IRS to pause all of its ongoing engineering work and cancel efforts to modernize its existing computer systems. On March 1, The Washington Post reported that Corcos had personally intervened, ordering the IRS to remove restrictions it had placed on Kliger’s access to its systems, and shortly after proposed an agreement that would enable IRS data to be shared across multiple government agencies. However, a March 14 letter from Senator Ron Wyden to the IRS and others suggests that this request was declined. In the letter, Wyden praised the “rightful rejection” of Corcos’ request, and goes on to cite a second Post story that claims Trump administration officials are trying to access IRS data to aid in their immigration crackdown, as well as their government efficiency efforts. With regards to the hackathon, Corcos is believed to be intent on creating “one API to rule them all,” and ensure that IRS data can be easily accessed via cloud platforms, Wired reported.

The API would first be applied to the IRS’ mainframes, and would later be expanded to its other internal systems, which are spread across dozens of on-premises data centers and compartmentalized cloud environments. At present, access to these systems is highly restricted, and IRS workers are only given permission to do so on a “need-to-know” basis.

DOGE wants the API to be built within just 30 days, but according to one IRS employee who spoke to Wired, that deadline is “not technically possible” and would likely “cripple” the IRS’s systems.

ruling Friday night, a federal judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction barring DOGE's access to sensitive Treasury Department systems, strengthening the previous temporary restraining order

one DOGE official, Marko Elez, was given broader access to one of the systems than he should have had. He was also allowed to take screenshots of some of the data, and "sent emails outside of the Treasury Department to USDS/DOGE," Vargas wrote

Treasury Department cannot say whether or not those emails contained sensitive [Bureau of Financial Services] data. More than a week after Elez resigned from the Treasury Department, BFS was still in the process of reviewing the logs of Elez’s activity on his laptop and within the BFS systems to determine if there was any unauthorized use," the judge wrote. "Even now, weeks after his departure, the Treasury Department is still reviewing his logs to determine what precisely he accessed and what he did with his access."

rdr.opm.gov