Musk Associates tried to use the Critical Ministry of Finance’s payment system to close USAID expenses, e emails showing e emails

Cnn
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Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk’s top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked his acting secretary, a career official, to immediately close all USAD payments using the department’s own ultra-sensitive payment treatment system.

Asked was so out of line with how the Treasury usually works, it got a skeptical response from David Lebrik and then served as acting treasury secretary who said he did not think “We have the legal authority to stop an authorized payment that is certified by an agency, ”according to a source familiar with the exchange.

LEACK SHOULD SUGGEST THAT A “LEGALLY LESS HOOKLY ACCEPT” would be that the state department, which oversees USAD, to resign from the payments themselves and to investigate whether they complied with President Donald Trump’s inauguration day, who executed order freezing foreign development support.

Tom Krause, a former tech director and now the top Doge employee at Treasury, replied that Lebrik himself could have legal risk if he had to choose to comply.

This back and forth over E -Mail, described to CNN by a source familiar with it, reveals the first known indication that Trump’s government -efficiency department tried to use Treasury’s tools to block some payments and fulfill the president’s political agenda.

The subsequent controversy set a chain reaction around Washington this week and triggered a tense political debate and nuisance about Dog’s access to the system and the administration’s potential interest in using it to turn off payments it chooses.

The E -mail exchange marked a direct collision between politically appointed loyal to musk and career officials by the Ministry of Finance.

Last Friday, Lebrik announced his sudden departure from the government service and ended his more than 35-year-old career on Treasury.

Democratic senators at Capitol Hill have demanded answers, while unions and protesters expressed fear of Musk’s potential penetration of Americans’ private data.

The controversy has also drawn attention to a previously unclear office inside Treasury called Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which processes more than a billion payments totaling more than a $ 5 trillion a year.

The Treasury payment system reliably distributes Americans ‘tax returns, social security services, disability payments and federal employees’ wages.

This action and access required by Krause is also dramatically different from the access that the Treasury Department has since said he was eventually awarded.

The Treasury Department, in a letter to legislators, said access to the payment system awarded to Krause and a deputy was limited to “read -only” with the payment systems. Trump’s recently confirmed Finance Minister Scott Bessent delivered the same message at a private meeting with House Republicans on Monday.

But this level of access is dramatically different from what Krause and his Doge Associates had pushed Lebrik to give IE email exchanging -and came in the midst of conflicting reports on whether the scope was more expansive than it was transferred.

“The hole here is what happened between the initial ash and Bessents unsubscribe,” said a source with knowledge of the events that led to the email exchange. “Either the DOGE ambitions of what they wanted dramatically changed, or the limitations they insist on were placed on them, is not the whole story.”

None of the people of Treasury on E -Mail responded to queries from CNN this week.

There have been questions about how far Trump and Musk believe they can go down to cut down on expenses over the federal government, with Musk in recent days that comment on closing the payments.

E emails also highlight how powerful the group from DOGE has been in drawing a way to use the Treasury to control Grant financing Trump and Musk are against, especially from USAID to develop foreign nations.

Any decision to turn off some payments via Treasury’s systems, especially to adapt to Trump’s political wishes, would be an unprecedented fiscal decision and pose a direct threat to Congress power in purse by giving the president more control of which payments to be made , or not.

However, it was not Trump -Delegaters’ approach.

In a long-lasting e-mail at the end of January, Daniel Katz, chief of staff for Bessent, wrote Trump’s then-secretary nominees, first that the department should close outgoing USAID payments, so that the state of the state could then assess whether AID to foreign health systems complied with Trump’s Directives according to the source who is familiar with the messages.

Katz wrote that “potentially problematic payments” out of line with the president’s orders should be paused in a lot of the department.

Still, Katz was clear that the new administration thought the Treasury could make its own decisions.

A department of USAD that provided money to the healthcare system’s systems in developing countries had already introduced a process to close some payments, Katz wrote, and the administration “would like to repeat” it on Treasury.

“What we would like to do is to the extent allowed by law temporarily breaks the automatic processing of payment files,” from a USAID department called Health Systems strengthening, Katz wrote.

Katz also wrote that Krause, Musk’s deputy at Treasury, should have access to the payment system so that he and his team could intervene.

Some of the administration’s plan, Katz added, immediately covered to keep all payment files in line and let Krause and others look at individual payments certified by USAID for health care. The Ministry of State could then take a closer look at the payments through USAID, Katz added.

The program for strengthening health systems at USAID has primarily fun money into countries in Africa and Southeast Asia as well as Indonesia, the Philippines, Guatemala and Haiti. The funds were intended to build the countries’ health systems so that they could improve care to prevent infants and mothers from dying in birth, control the spread of HIV and AIDS and other infectious diseases, including projects.

In a project that was touted on the now-archived USAID site, the division funded an alarm room in Jordan.

Its distributions are now in a 90-day break due to Trump’s executive order.

After Katz’s first announcement two weeks ago, Lebryk was explicit that the Treasury should not do what Doge suggested.

“There are also problems with practical and personal responsibilities that can come into play,” Lebrik wrote, copying a lawyer from the Treasury Department’s General Counsel’s Office.

But Krause, the special rent from DOGE that was sent to Treasury, was unbound. “I would also recommend that you consider an equal alternative responsibility,” he wrote to Lebrik.

“I think we can all feel more comfortable, that at least we have payment to review the underlying payment requests from USAID now, so we can have time to consult the state,” Krause wrote and ended a mid- AF-Evening e-mail Saturday, according to the source.

Frustrated by Katz and Krause’s messages left the Lebrig department the following week, shortly after the confirmation of now Secretary Bessent.

Originally, Bessent did not give Krause and DOGE any restriction on its access to the system, which Lebrik opposed, according to a source familiar with the exchange.

Even before the weekend was over, the Treasury Department Senators in Capitol Hill said that access to Krause and others had to Bureau of the Fiscal Service Systems was “read -only.”

A lawyer from the Ministry of Justice representing Treasury confirmed that in court this week, who told a federal judge on Wednesday, believed that civilian litigation believed that Doge-associated companies at Treasury-Krause and an underling, Marko Elez, a Mosque officer In the mid-20s, do not have the ability to make changes to the Treasury System.

The lawyers still spiked information about Access DODE had for the system, but the lawyer, Brad Humphreys of DOJ’s civilian department, the Washington referee, DC, told Wednesday.

By Wednesday night, the Trump administration had only agreed to the two DODE -associated companies in Treasury, Krause and Elez, could have access to the payment system outside its traditional access within the department.

The court could also require Krause and Elez’s access to “only read”, the Ministry of Justice agreed.