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erikpukinskis

Can anyone recommend a journalist who is reporting the facts of what’s happening on this subject?

From what I can tell, it’s widely been reported that

- Elon Musk was allowed into the Department of Education

- “Big Balls” accessed Treasury computers

- etc…

But I have not been able to find any first person testimony that confirms those statements.

From what I can tell Tom Krause is actually the one who was given access by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. And Tom Krause is an employee of the Treasury and has security clearance.

I see a lot of people claiming there was some sort of illegal access, but I would love to read a source that explains exactly who accessed exactly what system improperly.

Can anyone point me at that source?

View on HN

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjw4g2q62xqo

Ordering them to delete everything they got copies of, and the subsequent frustration from Musk.

Why cares who personally violated federal law? However he managed to, Musk got unlawful access to restricted data.

> Why cares who personally violated federal law? However he managed to, Musk got unlawful access to restricted data.

Can you articulate what federal law you think that order says was violated?

[flagged]

Security clearances being marked on documents as worthless because the government has told employees to "just pick" a specific cleatance from the dropdown, even for things like "lunch meeting Tomorrow". The clearance people were told to use is "never to be cleared" - meaning it's intractable.

It was abused, so I don't buy the legal argument.

Put another way, if everything is top secret, nothing is.

There’s nothing concrete in that article, just hand waving from people trying to keep their jobs. Who needed what clearance and didn’t have it?

In the BBC article?

I don't know or care as I'm not a party in this situation.

It is evident from the BBC article that restricted data was shared unlawfully with Musk and that they are asked to delete the data.

What will you do with the name of the person? Prosecute them?

You're welcome to look online yourself for answers for your questions - or chat with a competent lawyer, they'll be happy to help you sort it out

> It is evident from the BBC article

It is claimed from the BBC article. Even the shopped judge doesn't know if it is or isn't until the hearing next week.

rayiner is a lawyer, I believe with experience in and around DC and government agencies. I always appreciate his takes because they're often counter to call it the HN zeitgeist.

Why's he asking me then?

They're asking you to clarify your argument, obviously. You say some federal law has been broken, they're asking you to specify which federal law you claim has been broken. It isn't rocket science.

Alright, I'll break it down.

A lawyer would charge you a lot to explain this to you you know?

What he asked is not currently public. It will be made public during the hearing.

A US federal judge (Not some random guy) is acting in accordance with being aware of a federal crime. (It's actually many more than one judge and one crime but let's keep it simple)

I'm comfortable with trusting a US judges read on the situation a priori. You could argue that it will be overturned and thus nothing illegal happened, which would techbically be correct. All talk about this is hypothetical, especially here in the deep comment section of some website.

As I said, what are you going to do with this information?

So - this is a "gotcha" question, not asking for genuine clarification. As if random citizens should have an encyclopedic recall to all laws.

For more, ask a laywer

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/04/elon-musk...

Those are speculative, and seem to be based on factual misunderstandings as to what’s actually happening. For example, there’s just one non-treasury employee with “over the shoulder” access to the system supervised by treasury employees: https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/1888904650906099774

People are going to make fools out of themselves again indulging every wild rumor and speculation (pee tape, etc.) without having the facts.

And you suppose the Trump administration can be trusted to supply those facts? Because that's the source you're citing, if I understand Kyle Cheney's tweet correctly (I may not!).

You asked specifically for a reference to what laws the team might be breaking, implying pretty clearly that you didn't believe any such reference could be produced; when it was, you moved the goalposts.

Okay "law bro", get real. He's a finance CEO gutting the CFPB as we speak: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-02-10/doge-back...

America wrote and upheld several antitrust acts with the express intention of stopping this. It's not enough to say "there isn't a precedent so it's fine", your credentials as an attorney do not obviate the illegal conflict of interests at play. You're being obstinate to defend moral absurdity to the highest degree.

Businesses will sue, they will cite damages and they will have a rudimentary path to proving it. Unless America thinks free market capitalism is a sham, the only way Musk can get away with this is fleeing the country in 4 years. I would love to hear your assessment of how a fair court under American law would rule in Musk's favor.

Nothing in that link speaks of deletion. Wrong article?

Second paragraph of the article:

> US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction on Saturday to prohibit access, ordering Musk and his team to immediately destroy any copies of records.

I don't think you're going to find any on-he-record first person testimony. It's going to be unnamed government officials, or front-line government employees who are talking to reporters and providing information without direct attribution

https://www.crisesnotes.com/

The two confirmed people are Krause and Elez. Elez briefly resigned after his extremely racist tweets surfaced but is back at DOGE now. Krause has only been a treasury employee for 7 business hours as of now but has been on the task for much longer than that.

That many in DOGE had access and that two would continue to have it is not in question: https://thehill.com/business/5130107-treasury-department-lim...

The legality is also clearly in question: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/08/politics/elon-musk-doge-treas...

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