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After Doge court order, the Secretary of Social Security confirms he will not close the agency

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Deputy Commissioner Lee Dudeck issued a statement after a judge ruled against Doge this week, suggesting he might have to close the agency.

The head of the Agency for Social Security (SSA) has stopped closing agents after the government’s Office of Efficiency (DOGE) previously said they would do so in the aftermath of a temporary court order blocking access to data.

In a statement on March 21, acting Commissioner Lee Dudeck said he “has not closed the agency” and President Donald Trump “is in favor of leaving the Social Security office open and putting the right people in the right people.” He said agency employees will continue their work under the judge’s orders.

The judge, according to his statement, had “clear guidance” on temporary orders related to the agency’s Doge workers.

On March 20, US District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander accused the agency of banning Doge from access to the Social Security system that contains personally identifiable information and searching for fraudulent activities that may not exist.

In the aftermath of the order, Dudek told several media outlets that he could be forced to shut down the SSA.

“My anti-scary team will be Doge affiliates. My IT staff will be Doge affiliates,” he told Bloomberg News last week. “As of the moment, I’m going to follow that exactly and end all SSA employees access to the IT system.”

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“Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts understand how they want to run federal agencies.”

Separately, Dudek told The Washington Post in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post that “all about the agency” contains personally identifiable information and “unless you get clarification, you’ll start shutting it down. There’s not much choice here.”
His comments prompted Hollander to write to the SSA lawyers and plaintiffs involved in the case. She wrote that she was aware of media reports, including Dudek’s statement about the possibility of shutting down the SSA in the wake of her order.

“SSA employees who are not involved in the Doge or Doge team work will not be eligible for orders,” Hollander wrote in a letter to an attorney related to the case on March 21. “Additionally, the suggestion that an order may require delays or suspension of payment of benefits is incorrect.”

Hollander said her orders “applies only to SSA employees working on Doge Agenda,” and will not affect the operation of the SSA.

“In fact, as Dudek argues, if anyone else in the SSA was involved in Doge, I was misled by a government lawyer.”

Her ruling on March 20 responded to complaints filed by the union and other plaintiffs in the US District Court in the Maryland area, which argued that Doge’s activities were gaining power and an overreach of enforcement.

They write that Doge’s activities at an agency responsible for sending monthly Social Security and Social Security Disability Insurance payments to millions of people could potentially make the personal data of millions of Americans public.

Lawyers for the Trump administration argued that the unions and other groups that filed the complaint had no position to do so, and could not provide evidence that Doge could face imminent harm if he continued to access agency data.

Founded by Trump on an existing institution shortly after he took office, Doge, led by a tech billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk, was established within the federal government to eradicate fraud, abuse and waste. But Doge has faced many lawsuits in recent weeks, but judges have not agreed to plaintiffs who are constantly challenging the agency.



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