The new acting administrator of the Social Security Administration (SSA) is now announcing that he's carrying out "significant workforce reductions" at the critical agency that oversees trillions of dollars in payments to tens of millions of beneficiaries.
According to a Thursday article in The American Prospect, Leland Dudek, who took over as acting administrator after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) forced out the initial acting administrator earlier this month, has ordered all SSA managers present him with plans to reduce their respective headcounts by up to 50 percent. The email Dudek sent Thursday evening announcing "agency-wide organizational restructuring" does not indicate any plans to deviate from that goal. The SSA currently employs roughly 60,000 people, who process benefits for more than 71 million Americans as of 2023.
Dudek's email gives all SSA employees a deadline of March 14 to decide whether to retire early, resign or seek what Propsect executive editor David Dayen referred to as "voluntary reassignments." Workers aged 50 and up who have been with the agency for at least 20 years are reportedly being offered an "early out" voluntary retirement, which is a quicker timeline than that generally offered to employees of other federal agencies.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes responded to the news of Dudek's email by tweeting: "Just to be clear, these count as 'cuts to Social Security!' If you cut the way the program is administered, you're cutting it!" And Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson told the Prospect that the mass firings of Social Security workers amount to "Wall Street and the billionaires destroying Social Security so they can give themselves trillions in tax handouts."
"The ongoing bloodbath at the Social Security Administration has only one goal: the total annihilation of Social Security," Lawson said.
The Prospect reported that if the mass layoffs are carried out, it could result in "large delays in benefit adjudication and claims processing" for beneficiaries. The Social Security Fairness Act — which former President Joe Biden signed into law just weeks before he left office — could increase benefits for more than three million Americans. However, some of its provisions may require manual processing of benefits, which could take significantly longer if the SSA doesn't have enough staff.
Dudek replaced Michelle King as acting administrator in February after she refused to hand over sensitive Social Security information to DOGE representatives. The Washington Post reported that Dudek, who previously worked in SSA's fraud prevention office, leapfrogged several senior SSA officials to helm the agency. Dudek had previously praised DOGE's efforts on social media, according to the Post's sources.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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Rogan O'Handley and Chaya Raichik hold up 'Epstein Files' folders released by Justice Department
After years of promising to release the information the federal government had on now-deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the Trump administration allegedly did so on Thursday by giving documents to a group of untrustworthy right-wing influencers who are famous for spreading disinformation and hate.
Trump-loving social media personalities Rogan O'Handley, Chaya Raichik, Liz Wheeler, Chad Prather, and Mike Cernovich were seen leaving the White House holding binders that said "The Epstein Files" on the cover. Some of them even posed for smiling, jubilant photos with the binders in hand.
No actual trustworthy sources were given access to the documents, which Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed in a Wednesday night appearance on Fox News would include flight logs with "a lot of names."
Meanwhile, the New York Post reported that the files that were released included information already publicly known.
From the Post’s report:
A source who has reviewed the files said the release spans more than 100 pages, including a list of contacts without further context.
The person said the unveiling was likely to be a “disappointment” to sleuths eager for bombshell new evidence about the billionaire pedophile’s connection to prominent political and business leaders.
Josh Gerstein, a respected legal reporter at Politico who broke the news that the Supreme Court was overturning Roe v. Wade, wrote that the binders given to the right-wing influencers were “theater.”
“These files are not classified. Never were. That's also not a proper declassification marking,” Gerstein wrote in a post on X.
Now, Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are trying to shift blame for the lack of information onto the FBI.
"Attorney General Pam Bondi REVEALS in a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel that the FBI is WITHHOLDING Epstein documents from her," right-wing personality and Russian propagandist Benny Johnson wrote in a post on X.
“We got the binder at noon. SDNY and FBI held back the real information and AG Bondi directed Kash Patel to start kicking ass. AG Bondi handed what she had. There was nothing martial. There was an embargo until after the UK ‘prime minster’ visit,” Cernovich wrote in a post on X.
The way the Trump administration handled the document release led to criticism even from MAGA personalities.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican who chairs a supposed “Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets,” expressed her anger in a post on X.
"I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today… A NY Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein's phonebook. THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR,” Luna raged. “GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR instead of leaking old info to press."
Meanwhile Laura Loomer, an unabashed bigot and Trump superfan who made news during the 2024 campaign when she was seen traveling with Trump, was skeptical in a post on X.
"I love President Trump. But, how embarrassing for the Trump admin that the release of the Epstein files has been FUMBLED by giving files regarding a landmark pedophile scandal to a group of 'influencers' instead of having an official agency release them,” she said. “Not a good look.”
Loomer also railed on the Trump administration.
She wrote in an all-caps screed on X:
THERE ARE NO EPSTEIN FILES!!!THE BINDERS ARE PROPS.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE RIGHT WING PAID INFLUENCERS LIED TO ALL OF YOU TODAY!
THEY ENGAGED IN DECEPTION TO RUN COVER FOR PEDOPHILES!!!
THEY POSTED SELFIES WITH PROP BINDERS!
LIARS AND DECEIVERS
MAGA loyalists have been claiming for years that Trump would reveal the Epstein client list.
But they conveniently forget that Trump himself was buddies with the very wealthy financier/human trafficker, as evidenced by multiple photos of Trump and Epstein together.
And Trump even called Epstein a "terrific guy."
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump said in a 2002 interview with New York magazine. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Trump himself was even listed in publicly released documents from a 2015 defamation lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre.
According to documents unsealed from that lawsuit, Guiffre said in a deposition that she was “lured into working as a masseuse for Epstein when she was 17 and working as a spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida,” the New York Post reported.
It’s possible Trump doesn’t want the files released for that very reason.
In January, after he was unfortunately sworn in, Trump signed an executive order promising to release FBI files on John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., but conveniently left Epstein off the list.
Other high-profile Trump administration officials have also been linked to Epstein, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flew on Epstein’s private jet twice.
During the 2024 campaign, Kennedy tried to defend his ties to Epstein by saying that he’s actually friends with lots of sexual predators—as if that was a defense.
“I mean, I knew Harvey Weinstein. I knew Roger Ailes. I knew—OJ Simpson came to my house. Bill Cosby came to my house,” Kennedy said.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
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