1 Apr 2025

Top Department of the Interior Officials Put On Leave For Turning Away DOGE

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Late last week, top Department of the Interior officials were put on administrative leave after refusing Elon Musk’s DOGE high permission access to a payroll system that could stop even paychecks for Supreme Court justices.

The “Department of Government Efficiency” is a subset of a White House IT team, not a government department.

Officials involved include the Interior Department’s Chief Information Officer, information security officers and a top lawyer.

The systems to which DOGE wants full-power access include payroll, human resources, and credentialing. A crucial one is the Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS) which is used by dozens of federal agencies for payroll and other records covering more than 275,000 workers. The agencies affected include the Department of Justice, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and some agencies outside the executive branch.

Key DOGE personnel involved are:

  • Tyler Hassen, acting assistant secretary of policy, management, and budget at the Interior Department and was formerly an energy executive
  • Stephanie Holmes, whois the acting chief human capital officer at the Interior Department and runs DOGE’s human resources
  • Katrine Trampe, an adviser to Secretary of the Interiof Doug Burgum

They said they wanted to be able to create, suspend, and delete email accounts. By design, this cannot be done by a single user. Granting them permissions high enough to do this would make them gods in the systems, able to see or do anything. As a matter of security policy no one in the Department is supposed to have that power.

The particular DOGE workers involved are not part of a formal DOGE team, and therefore are not supposed to have powers beyond those of a standard DOGE employee.

The Interior Department officials who raised concerns were put on leave Friday afternoon. DOGE got access to at least FPPS on Saturday, although their level of permission is not clear.

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