Schadenfreude: SSA Fraud Expert Benched for Helping DOGE, But Then Appointed Acting Commissioner
“At 4:30pm EST, my boss called me to tell me I had been placed on administrative leave pending an Investigation. They want to fire me for cooperating with DOGE.”
When the powers that be at the Social Security Administration learned that long-time fraud expert Leland Dudek had cooperated fully with the Department of Government Efficiency team, he was placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation.
In a now-deleted LinkedIn post obtained by The Daily Wire, Dudek wrote:
At 4:30pm EST, my boss called me to tell me I had been placed on administrative leave pending an Investigation. They want to fire me for cooperating with DOGE.
I confess. I helped DOGE understand SSA. I mailed myself publicly accessible documents and explained them to DOGE. I confess. I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team. I confess. I asked where the fat was and is in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.
I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done.
Everything I have ever done is in service to our country, our beneficiaries, and our agency.
The Daily Wire reported that hours later, Dudek was reinstated – “with a big promotion.” He was appointed the agency’s Acting Commissioner, replacing former Acting Commissioner Michelle King, who had flatly refused to assist DOGE in any way.
Dudek will serve as Acting Commissioner until Trump’s nominee, Frank Bisignano, is confirmed by the Senate.
"I confess. I asked where the fat was in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.”
Dudek is an example of how there are some fiscally conscious career feds, and how DOGE can maximize impact through people who know where the bodies are buriedhttps://t.co/O3Duk3yKgV
— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) February 19, 2025
An SSA employee who spoke to The Daily Wire on the condition of anonymity said Dudek was placed on leave by Deputy Commissioner for Analytics, Review, and Oversight Gina Clemons, who, at the time the report was published, still had a job.
Billy Gribbin, a spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), made a very good point in a post on X: “I hope we see more of this,” he wrote. “There are many good civil servants who have been quietly frustrated for years with politically-motivated mismanagement who possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the problems with their agencies. Put them in charge, hand them scalpels and flamethrowers.”
Gribbin is right. While most bureaucrats lean left and have little interest in shrinking the federal government, a few are disgusted by its bloat and overreach – and they’re more than willing to work with DOGE. And sometimes, all it takes to spark change is a handful of insiders, especially those who know where all the bodies are buried.
None of us were surprised by DOGE’s recent discovery that 25 million individuals over the age of 100 remain in the Social Security database – despite there being fewer than 100,000 centenarians alive in the U.S. today. Taxpayers want to know if any of these people are still receiving benefits, particularly the ones who are over 120 years of age. They also want to know how many illegal immigrants are currently benefiting from their largesse.
To no one’s surprise, The Daily Wire pointed out that the legacy media’s reporting on this story left out the fact that SSA leadership had sought to punish Dudek for cooperating with DOGE. For example, The Washington Post reported that “King exited the agency after refusing to let DOGE access agency data and was replaced by Dudek.”
CNN covered the story in a similar fashion:
Over the weekend, SSA acting commissioner Michelle King, a long-time career service executive at the agency, resigned after DOGE staffers attempted to access sensitive government records. In her place, SSA employee Lee Dudek was named acting director.
Dudek put out a statement on SSA’s “Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information” around noon on Wednesday. “My first call as Acting Commissioner was to our Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to provide them an opportunity to oversee and review any and all agency activities, including my actions past, present, and future.”
It makes little difference how the legacy media reports the story because fewer and fewer people still look to these outlets for their news. What does matter is that, at long last, change has come to the federal government. And it’s good to see a win for an honest broker like Leland Dudek.
Ahhh. Schadenfreude.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Ain’t it funny how life goes around
Same people you meet going up,
you see them coming down
Poetic, she is mad and it would be damn near impossible to find anyone who cares.
Bye, Felicia.
The first course of action in his new position is to find out who all the people were that had a hand in his brief suspension and terminate them. They are part of the problem.
It is open season for underlings to to oust their boss, that will be striking terror in the upper ranks.
As I wrote in my critically acclaimed management book, “The people above you have the power to reward you; the people below you have the power to get you fired.”
Top down bullying of the employees makes for an unhappy and unproductive workplace. There are a million ways to get back at management. The problem is that the civil service is bound with so many rules it’s very hard to terminate someone and they know it.
It’s like the 3 ring circus is in town
Uhm, LEAVING town.
When “None of us were surprised by DOGE’s recent discovery that 25 million individuals over the age of 100 remain in the Social Security database” we immediately wondered if the SSA should have some Congressional oversight. To that end because current oversight seems not only weak, but nonexistent, in fact, the Speaker of the House states agencies hide things from them, I propose that every check written to someone aged 100 or older is an actual paper check and hand delivered by the two Senators of that State with complete video documentation.
I believe the 25,000,000 elderly recipients will be quickly culled down to zero. If this works, which it will, those Senators can get back in touch with their State’s population by asking around where to find those hermit elderly recipients and do what politicians do best, glad hand their constituents.
Social Security:
In the mid 1970s, my family (widowed mother with 5 kids) went hungry for about a year after Social Security had screwed up the death benefits and then came after her for the money.
The only food I ate that wasn’t grown at home was toast for about a year.
So please hire me to go after the people collecting fraudulently. Knees and fingers will get broken.
Almost all of the 25 million are simply the result of lazy management never cleaning up the database. I would doubt more than 1% of that 25 million are fraudulently receiving benefits
What? Huh? What’s 1% of 25 million? 250,000? Really?
Gee that’s a lot of goddamn money!
“While most bureaucrats lean left and have little interest in shrinking the federal government, a few are disgusted by its bloat and overreach – and they’re more than willing to work with DOGE. And sometimes, all it takes to spark change is a handful of insiders, especially those who know where all the bodies are buried.”
These are 100% the people we need coming forward, but guys like Dudek are rare. People in these sorts of jobs (and I say this as someone IN this sort of job) tend to be … risk averse. Give them reassurances and/or some way to help anonymously and you’ll get more results.
Democrats like Walz and Schumer are always instituting Snitch Lines.
Maybe this is an idea whose time has come… for Republicans.
Hear, hear!
Got to love a happy ending. When you find a few good people in the government you hold on to them.
Yup. I hope that after Trump’s nominee is confirmed, Dudek is given another high-ranking spot.
Treat these agencies like Sodom and Gomorrah – if a sufficient number of good employees aren’t found to run them, nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Long time career servant isn’t the glowing adjective they think it is.
when this sh!t storm blows up, people will ask Republicans. Where were you?
Romney, Cheney, Kitzinger, Barr, Pence ,Bolton, Milley, KElly, Grisham….there hands are clean. They ( eventually ) saw the ‘orange Harvey Weinstein ‘ for who he was.