The White House is dismissing what it calls “another hoax” after media outlets and at least one congressional Democrat promoted allegations that the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was improperly releasing classified information.
The controversy began on Friday when the left-leaning HuffPost reported that DOGE, led by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, had published classified information on its new website regarding the size and staffing of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). An unnamed Defense Intelligence Agency employee claimed DOGE had leaked “secret” data, causing officials to scramble to verify whether sensitive information had been accessed. Anonymous Senate aides asserted that the NRO’s staffing and budget details were classified to prevent foreign adversaries from exploiting them.
Upon initial publication, HuffPost quoted an NRO spokesperson deferring all questions to DOGE and noted that the White House had not responded to a request for comment. However, after publication, the article was updated with a denial from the White House. Despite this, other media outlets quickly picked up the story. The Daily Beast re-aggregated the report, while ABC News pursued the allegations further, citing intelligence community sources who claimed DOGE’s actions “likely” represented a major security breach. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) also amplified the accusations, the Daily Wire reported.
“Yesterday, the DOGE guys post classified information on their website, and they had to realize, oh, we didn’t realize that agency was a classified agency. You shouldn’t let people run rampage through offices that have classified information,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” However, former House investigator and journalist Jerry Dunleavy debunked the claims in a series of posts on X, pointing out that the NRO headcount information is already publicly available on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) website. Additionally, DOGE clearly states on its own site that its workforce data comes directly from OPM.
“DOGE even says under ‘Sources’ that it’s pulling its data from OPM’s publicly available data set as of March 2024,” he said. “OPM posted then NRO has 1,097 employees. DOGE posts now NRO has 1,097 employees. So… is the claim here that OPM has been publicly posting classified info for years?”
In an email, White House Principal Deputy Communications Director Alex Pfeiffer dismissed the “controversy” as nothing more than DOGE reformatting publicly available data. He firmly denied that any “breach” of sensitive information had occurred. “DOGE is sharing OPM data from under the Biden administration,” Pfeiffer said in a statement. “The headcount for this agency is publicly available on OPM’s website. These attacks are just another hoax meant to undermine the great work the Trump Administration is doing.”
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