Schadenfreude: SSA Fraud Expert Benched for Helping DOGE, But Then Appointed Acting Commissioner
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.
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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