Even though Elon Musk just loves tweeting about DOGE's "successes," the White House really doesn't like to answer questions about who is in charge.
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The White House on Tuesday refused to answer questions about who serves as the administrator of DOGE, an acronym that might as well stand for Destruction of Government Entities.
DOGE, of course, is the pet project of shadow president Elon Musk, who has promised to be very transparent about the activities of his crackerjack crew of tech bros whose job it is to make government more efficient create a government that leaves rich people alone while making regular Americans hate it.
However, in spite of this (laughable) vow of transparency, DOGE has always been shrouded in secrecy… well, apart from Musk’s ridiculous and frequently debunked claims of having identified huge amounts of “waste” or “fraud.”
While there is little doubt that these things exist, DOGE’s efforts do not seem to be designed to identify them but rather to put on ice those government programs that the Trump/Musk administration is opposed to ideologically.
In addition, the White House, and by extension DOGE, may lack the authority to do much of what it is doing.
In any case, one of the great mysteries surrounding DOGE is who is actually in charge. Based on Musk’s incessant tweets and Trump’s own statements, one might think that it is the Tesla owner and presidential puppeteer himself.
However, such an official role may make him subject to federal transparency and recordkeeping rules, and that’s probably not something he wants.
On Monday, a federal judge professed to be puzzled by who runs DOGE… and whether it is even a legal entity.
“Based on the limited record I have before me I have some concerns about the constitutionality of USDS’s structure and operation,” said District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
USDS is the official acronym of DOGE after President Donald Trump renamed the US Digital Service to US DOGE Service upon taking office.
And, during a hearing on Monday before Kollar-Kotelly, a government counsel could not even answer a question about who the administrator is (or who is telling all those tech bros sabotaging the government and digging through the personal information of Americans what to do).
Apparently, the White House either doesn’t know or refuses to share this information with the country.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt repeatedly dodged questions from reporters who tried to inquire as to who runs DOGE.
“There are career officials at DOGE. There are political appointments at DOGE,” she said. “I’m not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium.”
In the next sentence, Leavitt hilariously claimed that the White House has been “incredibly transparent about the way that DOGE is working.”
Well, maybe “transparent” until judges or reporters ask questions.
And while Trump and Musk can’t do anything about onerous judges making inquiries, they can do something about pesky reporters.
On Tuesday, Leavitt announced that, going forward and with a break from long-established tradition, White House officials will determine who gets to cover Trump up close, not media organizations themselves.
Following her promise to open up the White House briefing room to “new media voices” (i.e., right-wing podcasters) and the banishment of the Associated Press for failing to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” this is the administration’s latest attempt to suppress anything resembling fair coverage of the shady stuff Trump and Musk are up to.
In spite of this secrecy, and Musk’s misleading claims of DOGE’s successes, Americans are no fans of this government-dismantling process… or the guy who is clearly behind it.
Just imagine how much worse it would get for Republicans if they learned the truth.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else
