Musk staffer ‘mistakenly’ given ability to edit Treasury Department payment system, legal filings say
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(WASHINGTON) — A 25-year-old associate of Elon Musk and former Treasury Department employee was “mistakenly” given the ability to make changes to a sensitive federal payment system, officials with the Bureau of the Fiscal Service disclosed in a series of court filings late Tuesday.
Treasury Department officials said the “error” was quickly corrected, and a forensic investigation into the actions of Marko Elez — who resigned from his position last week after The Wall Street Journal unearthed a series of racist social media posts — remains ongoing.
“To the best of our knowledge, Mr. Elez never knew of the fact that he briefly had read/write permissions for the [Secure Payment System] database, and never took any action to exercise the ‘write’ privileges in order to modify anything within the SPS database — indeed, he never logged in during the time that he had read/write privileges, other than during the virtual walk-through — and forensic analysis is currently underway to confirm this,” wrote Joseph Gioeli III, a deputy commissioner at Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
The high-profile mistake at BFS — which effectively serves as the federal government’s checkbook by disbursing more than $5 trillion annually — comes as a federal judge in New York is weighing whether to continue to block individuals associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records.
Lawyers with the Department of Justice initially insisted that Elez was strictly given “read-only” access to sensitive records, but the affidavits submitted by BFS employees on Tuesday noted that the 25-year-old was inadvertently given the ability to “read/write” the sensitive system that agencies use to send “large dollar amount transactions” to the Treasury Department.
According to Gioeli, Treasury Department officials also provided Elez with copies of the “source code” for multiple payment systems that he could edit in a digital “sandbox.”
“Mr. Elez could review and make changes locally to copies of the source code in the cordoned-off code repository; however, he did not have the authority or capability to publish any code changes to the production system or underlying test environments,” the filing said.
Elez resigned from his role on Feb. 6, and Gioielli claimed that the 25-year-old former SpaceX and X employee was the “only individual on the Treasury DOGE Team” who was given direct access to payment systems or source code. A “preliminary review” of his digital activity suggests that Elez stayed within the permitted bounds of his role when accessing the payment systems.
“While forensic analysis is still ongoing, Bureau personnel have conducted preliminary reviews of logs of his activity both on his laptop and within the systems and at this time have found no indication of any unauthorized use, of any use outside the scope that was directed by Treasury leadership, or that Mr. Elez used his BFS laptop to share any BFS payment systems data outside the U.S. Government,” the filing said.
The filings also provided new insights into DOGE’s ongoing mission with the Treasury Department, including to identify fraud, better understand how the payments are fulfilled and to enforce Trump’s day-one executive order that significantly cut foreign aid.
According to Thomas Krause — a tech CEO and DOGE volunteer who is leading the cost-cutting effort at the Treasury Department — DOGE is engaged in 4-to-6-week assessment of the Treasury Department’s payment systems. He was placed at Treasury not only to identify potential fraud but also understand how to use the Department’s payment systems to potentially cut funding to other parts of the government, the filing said.
“BFS is well positioned to help agencies and the federal government holistically understand and take stock of the problems [Government Accountability Office] has reported on,” Krause wrote.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends the inauguration of Donald Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Julia Demaree Nikhinson – Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — From a multimillion-dollar law firm payout to six-figure endorsements and book deals, President Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., raked in at least $12 million in total income in the past two years, new personal financial disclosure forms show.
Kennedy boasted a vast amount of wealth across various investment funds, bank accounts and real estate properties totaling between $8.6 million to $33.4 million. However, he also reported a staggering amount of liabilities — between $3.4 million and $12.7 million — which could put him in the red on paper.
Kennedy’s liabilities include up to $1.2 million in credit card debt to American Express at a 23% revolving interest rate and three 30-year mortgages worth up to $10.5 million, according to the filing.
The exact values of his total assets and liabilities are unclear because federal financial disclosures are reported in ranges.
A major chunk of Kennedy’s income since 2023 was his nearly $9 million payout from his law firm Kennedy & Madonna LLP, which is now called Madonna & Madonna LLP after Kennedy resigned last week.
His main source of income from the past year stemmed from hefty referral fees from multiple law firms, arrangements which Kennedy noted in his ethics agreement that he will terminate upon his confirmation. However, he stated he plans to retain a contingency fee interest in cases that do not involve the U.S. government.
In his ethics agreement, Kennedy disclosed that among the cases he has referred to the Wisner Baum law firm are claims filed under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), from which he said he will divest his interest.
Kennedy, who has been a vocal supporter of cryptocurrency and has spoken at multiple Bitcoin conventions, also reported owning between $1 million to $5 million in Fidelity’s Bitcoin fund, the filing shows.
Kennedy also disclosed smaller holdings in biotech companies Dragonfly Therapeutics and CRISPR Therapeutics AG, as well as in other companies like Progressive Corp, Amazon and Apple, from which he said he plans to divest after his confirmation.
Credit card debt potentially doubled in 6 months
Kennedy’s credit card debt potentially doubled in just six months, a comparison of his liabilities in his new disclosure filing and his disclosure from last year suggest.
In July 2024, Kennedy, as a presidential candidate, disclosed having credit card debts to American Express worth $360,004 to $715,000, at roughly 23% revolving interest rate.
In his latest disclosure submitted in late December 2024 and publicly released today, Kennedy’s American Express debts snowballed into between $610,000 and $1.2 million.
It’s unclear how much, exactly, his credit card debt increased in the past few months because liabilities are reported in ranges, but the latest disclosure shows his debts have potentially grown exponentially.
Money from book deals
Kennedy is set to earn millions from multiple book deals, including up to $4 million in advances for books titled “Unsettled Science” and “A Defense for Israel.” Kennedy also earned $1,000 for an advance for a book titled “Vax-UnVax: Let the Science Speak.”
According to his disclosure, two of the three books have already been written prior to his nomination, and he does not plan to engage in “writing, editing, marketing, or promotional services” while serving as HHS Secretary.
Kennedy earned little income from the fourteen books he has already published – such as “American Values: Lessons I Learned from my Family” and “Vaccine Villains: What the American Public Should Know about the Industry” — making less than $200 from each title, according to the disclosure form.
Money from endorsements
Kennedy earned $100,000 from his endorsement of a boxing ball game called Boxbollen in a video he posted on his social media accounts last month, though he returned $50,000 after cancelling the contract following his nomination as health and human services secretary.
“Mr. Kennedy had a pre-existing contract prior to his nomination, after posting the video – he realized it was best to delete it and cancel the contract,” a source close to Kennedy told ABC News in November.
Kennedy also earned $200,000 in speaking fees during three days in November, speaking at the Rockbridge Fall Summit in Las Vegas — organized by a conservative donor network co-founded by Vice President JD Vance – and Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Hollywood money
Kennedy also disclosed dozens of sources of compensation from his wife Cheryl Hines, an actress best known for her role on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
In addition to that show, Hines earns residual payments from multiple films and television shows including “Friends,” “Herbie,” “Waitress,” “The Conners,” “The Flight Attendant” and “A Bad Moms Christmas.”
Hines also received a $600,000 advance payment for her memoir “My Shade of Crazy.”
Oil rights, properties in Chicago
As was disclosed in his previous financial disclosure from his 2024 presidential bid, Kennedy had previously owned oil and gas rights in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida but sold them in the past year, netting roughly $55,000 from the sales, according to the filing.
He also reported owning commercial properties in Chicago worth between $700,000 and $1.5 million.
(SANA’A, Yemen) — President Donald Trump announced he ordered the U.S. military to launch “decisive and powerful military action” against the Houthis in Yemen.
“They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”
A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that U.S. air and naval assets hit dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen, including missiles, radars and drone and air defense systems. The official characterized the attacks as an opening salvo against the Houthis and sends a strong message to Iran.
A spokesman for Yemen’s ministry of health said at least nine people have been killed in the strikes and another nine injured. He said most of the casualties were civilians, and the number of those killed and injured will be updated as rescue and recovery efforts continue.
The strikes are the largest and most significant military action that Trump has taken in his second term.
The Houthi attacks were carried out by fighter jets from the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, now in the northern Red Sea, as well as Air Force attack planes and armed drones launched from bases in the region, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Trump approved the plan on Friday, the source added.
The strikes Saturday are the result of several high-level White House meetings this week with Trump and top national security aides, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Michael E. Kurilla.
The attacks could intensify in scope and scale depending on the Houthi reaction, a source familiar with the plan said.
The source stressed this is not expected to be a single day event and said that “this will be decisive.”
Earlier in March, the Houthis warned they would resume attacking shipping vessels if Israel’s blockade of aid in Gaza continued.
Trump also had a stark message for Iran, writing that its support for the Houthis must end “immediately.” The president redesignated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization via an executive order in first days in office.
In a message to the Houthis, Trump threatened that if the attacks don’t stop, then “hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before.”
The Biden administration also conducted multiple strikes against the Houthis as they disrupted international shipping lanes in the Red Sea with attacks.
The last U.S. airstrike in Yemen against the Houthis occurred on Jan. 8, while former President Joe Biden was still in office, when a precision strike targeted two underground ammunition bunkers. There had been no other airstrikes since then partly because the Houthis stopped attacking ships during the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
Trump slammed his predecessor, writing, “Joe Biden’s response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going.”
Since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the Houthis have launched more than 100 attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, causing disruptions to global trade through one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. The Houthi rebels had initially framed their attacks as a way to pressure Israel to stop the war that was launched following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. But as shippers began to avoid the regions of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the rebel strikes still continued.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on January 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee Pam Bondi vowed she would remove politics from the Department of Justice during the first day of her confirmation hearing, though her refusal to answer key questions about Trump’s 2020 election loss and his outspoken desire for retribution raised concerns about how she would execute her promise.
With a second day of her hearing set to resume on Thursday, Bondi is expected to glide through confirmation and take on the role of the country’s top law enforcement officer, tasked with implementing Trump’s longstanding desire to reshape the Department of Justice that brought two criminal cases against him before his election.
“The partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone. America will have one tier of justice for all,” Bondi said, vowing that, “There will never be an enemy’s list within the Department of Justice.”
While Bondi sought to reassure the Senate Judiciary Committee about her independence from Trump and desire to usher in a “new golden age” of the DOJ, her refusal to say that Trump lost the 2020 election, defense of her past statement that “prosecutors will be prosecuted,” and openness to investigate Special Counsel Jack Smith prompted skepticism from Democratic members of the committee.
If confirmed, Bondi would lead the DOJ with recently expanded power after the Supreme Court last year ruled that interactions between a president and attorney general are immune from prosecution.
“The fear and the concern we have is that the incoming president will use that loaded weapon, that immunity to commit crimes through the Department of Justice,” said Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff.
Here are five key takeaways from the first day of Bondi’s confirmation hearing:
Bondi vowed to keep politics out of prosecutions, but keeps the door open to investigating Jack Smith
Accusing President Joe Biden of coordinating political prosecutions, Bondi said that she would only bring cases based on “facts and law” and said she has not discussed starting investigations of Trump’s enemies with the president-elect.
“No one will be prosecuted, investigated because they are a political opponent. That’s what we’ve seen for the last four years in this administration. People will be prosecuted, based on the facts and the law,” Bondi said.
However, when pressed about Trump’s claim that special counsel Jack Smith should go to jail, Bondi declined to answer whether she would open an investigation into Smith before suggesting his conduct is “horrible.”
“Senator, what I’m hearing on the news is horrible. Do I know if he committed a crime? I have not looked at it,” said Bondi, who added that “it would be irresponsible … to make a commitment regarding anything.”
In his final report issued earlier this week, Smith denied Trump’s accusation that his work was in any way political — describing the accusation as “laughable” — and assuring Attorney General Merrick Garland that his work followed the “rule of law” and DOJ guidelines regarding political interference.
Bondi declined to answer key questions about Trump’s election denialism, vow to pardon Jan. 6 defendants
Bondi — who helped Trump spread distrust in the outcome of the 2020 election — notably declined to say that Trump lost the 2020 election, raising concerns from Democratic senators in light of Trump’s alleged use of the Department of Justice to illegally retain power after his defeat.
“Are you prepared to say today, under oath, without reservation, that Donald Trump lost the presidential contest to Joe Biden in 2020?” Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin asked.
“Joe Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in, and he is the president of the United States. There was a peaceful transition of power. President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024,” Bondi said, repeatedly refusing to offer a yes or no answer to the question.
Bondi also refused to condemn Trump’s baseless claim that “massive fraud” corrupted the 2020 election. When asked about Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he asked him to “find” 11,780 votes, Bondi said she has not listened to the entirety of it, but suggested Trump’s comments were taken out of context.
Bondi also declined to comment about Trump’s vow to pardon the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, during his first day in office, telling the committee she would defer to Trump and declining to weigh in on the proposed pardons because she has not read every defendants’ case file.
“Senator, I have not seen any of those files. Of course, if confirmed and if asked to advise the president, I will look at each and every file. But let me be very clear in speaking to you, I condemn any violence on a law enforcement officer in this country,” Bondi answered.
Bondi avoided answering if she would disobey an unlawful order from Trump
When pressed by Democratic Sen. Chris Coons about dropping a criminal case if someone in the White House directed her to, Bondi declined to entertain the hypothetical.
“What I can tell you is my duty, if confirmed as the attorney general, will be to the Constitution and the United States of America, and the most important oath, part of that oath that I will take are the last four words, ‘So help me God.’”
Bondi at one point answered “of course” when asked if she would be willing to resign if asked to do something improper.
“Senator, I wouldn’t work at a law firm, I wouldn’t be a prosecutor, I wouldn’t be attorney general if anyone asked me to do something improper and I felt I had to carry that out,” Bondi said.
Schiff, who had multiple heated exchanges with Bondi, expressed skepticism that she could avoid confrontation with Trump, considering his past attorneys general.
“You may say that you believe that conflict will never come, but every day, week, month and year of the first Trump administration demonstrated that conflict will come. Jeff Sessions may not have believed it would come to him. It came to him. Bill Barr may not have believed it would come to him. It came to him. It came to everyone,” Schiff said. “It will come to you and what you do in that moment will define your attorney generalship.”
Bondi vowed to reform the DOJ but provided few specifics of her plans
Bondi told senators that she aspired to “restore confidence and integrity” in the DOJ after what she called a weaponization of the justice system to target Trump. She vowed that if confirmed, she would answer to the people of the U.S., not the president.
“My oath would be to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. The people of America would be my client,” Bondi said.
While her vow to remove politics from the DOJ were cheered on by Senate Republicans, Bondi offered few details about how she would implement her plan across the department’s 115,000 employees. Bondi attempted to defend her 2023 statement that “prosecutors will be prosecuted,” telling the Committee that she would only bring cases against “bad” prosecutors.
Bondi appears poised to be confirmed by the Senate, as attention turns to Kash Patel
While Senate Democrats raised concerns about Bondi’s refusal to acknowledge Trump’s 2020 loss and lack of commitments, her confirmation appears all but assured.
“I know how to count and I know how to read tea leaves. It seems to me you’re very, very, very, very likely to be confirmed, and certainly look forward to working with you and your office,” said Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla towards the end of the hearing.
After the hearing on Wednesday, a few Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee avoided saying exactly how they’d vote on Bondi’s confirmation, though Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the “odds are in her favor.:
“I would say the odds are in her favor with the majority of the Senate floor. I don’t know if a single Republican is going against her. We’re still going to ask the tough questions today and tomorrow,” Durbin said.
With Bondi unlikely to face a serious challenge to her confirmation, Senate Democrats instead turned their attention to Trump’s pick to run the FBI, Kash Patel. Bondi said she looks forward to working with Patel — calling him the “right person” for the job and defending his qualifications — and denying the idea that either she or Patel would maintain a list of enemies or break the law.
“What I can sit here and tell you is Mister Patel, if he works with running the FBI — if he is confirmed, and if I am confirmed, he will follow the law if I am the attorney general of the United States of America, and I don’t believe he would do anything otherwise,” Bondi said.
