U.S. DOGE Service
The U.S. DOGE Service is the body created by Executive Order 14158 in January 2025 to carry out the initiative styled the Department of Government Efficiency, established by repurposing the existing U.S. Digital Service. No department of that name was created by Congress, which is why the archive records the formal entity as canonical and treats "Department of Government Efficiency" and "DOGE" as aliases. Entries naming it record staffing reductions across agencies, the handling of appropriated funds, and its responses to oversight bodies.
Also known as Department of Government Efficiency · DOGE
2026 Events (5)
ProPublica investigation found DOGE cuts left OPM FOIA office unable to fulfill records requests
A ProPublica investigation published August 11, 2026 found that the Office of Personnel Management's FOIA and Privacy Act office has become largely non-functional since the Department of Government Efficiency's early-2025 staffing cuts, which eliminated more than 600 government-information specialists across federal agencies, including 12 of OPM's own. OPM's FOIA backlog grew to over 1,600 requests by the end of fiscal 2025 — seven times the prior year's total — and average processing time doubled to more than 84 days, while a reporter attempting to file a routine request in July 2026 was bounced between broken web portals and abandoned email inboxes for weeks. OPM did not respond to a request for comment.
DOGE refused to answer GAO's questions after audit found it overstated 'Wall of Receipts' savings
A Government Accountability Office report released August 6, 2026, found the U.S. DOGE Service consistently overstated cost-cutting savings on its public "Wall of Receipts," claiming credit for lease terminations that began before DOGE existed and for a contract cancellation that was never carried out. The audit, requested by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), found DOGE could not substantiate the methodology behind most of its reported savings -- and gave DOGE the opportunity to respond to or contest the findings, which DOGE did not do.
Forest Service Chief Schultz falsely told Congress DOGE cuts had not harmed wildfire capacity; agency documents and officials contradicted the claim
On July 23, 2026, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz testified before the House Agriculture Committee that DOGE budget cuts had not impacted wildfire firefighting capacity in Minnesota, where dozens of wildfires were actively burning. A Washington Post investigation published July 25, 2026, drawing on accounts from at least two current Forest Service officials and an internal agency document, reported that DOGE paused or canceled nearly all USFS grant projects and funds in early 2025, setting back fire-fuel-reduction preparedness by approximately a year and a half — directly contradicting Schultz's congressional testimony.
Whistleblower alleged ex-DOGE employee retained Social Security data on personal device, claimed remote-alter access
On March 10, 2026, The Washington Post reported a whistleblower's allegation that a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee at the Social Security Administration had retained copies of tightly restricted SSA databases covering nearly every living American -- including one on a personal thumb drive -- and claimed continued "God-level" access letting him remotely alter SSA records, with plans to share the data with a private-sector employer. SSA's inspector general confirmed to congressional committees it had opened an investigation into the anonymous complaint, and House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia demanded briefings from SSA and the OIG and requested transcribed interviews with former DOGE employees by March 23, 2026. SSA, the former employee, and the company he allegedly went to work for all disputed the allegations.
DOJ court filing revealed DOGE shared Social Security data of 300 million Americans via an unapproved server
A Justice Department court filing dated January 16, 2026 disclosed that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team members at the Social Security Administration had copied and shared a database of more than 300 million Americans' personal records through Cloudflare, a third-party server not approved to store SSA data and outside the agency's security protocols; SSA said it still cannot determine what was shared or whether it remains on the server. The same filing disclosed that SSA referred two DOGE employees to the Office of Special Counsel for potential Hatch Act violations after a political advocacy group contacted them seeking Social Security data to match against state voter rolls as part of an effort to overturn election results in certain states.
2025 Events (4)
DOGE used one-line ChatGPT prompts to terminate 97% of NEH's appropriated humanities grants, gutting agency in 22 days
Discovery material released in a federal lawsuit shows that between a March 12, 2025 meeting with National Endowment for the Humanities leadership and an April 1, 2025 completion, DOGE staff used brief ChatGPT prompts asking whether grants "relate at all to DEI" to screen and terminate more than 1,000 NEH grants — 97% of the agency's then- appropriated funding, about $100 million — while also eliminating 65% of NEH's staff. NEH's acting chair, Michael McDonald, yielded grant-termination authority to DOGE staff, who had no experience in humanities research or grant review.
Secretary Rubio cancelled 83% of USAID programs, eliminating 5,200 congressionally-appropriated contracts
On March 10, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration had completed a DOGE-led six-week review and was cancelling 83% of USAID's programs — 5,200 of approximately 6,200 contracts — that had been congressionally appropriated. The remaining roughly 1,000 programs were to be folded into the State Department. The affected programs included HIV/AIDS treatment, malaria prevention, TB care, humanitarian food aid, and democratic governance work across dozens of countries.
DOGE fired 89 FDA Human Foods Program staff overseeing food and chemical safety; deputy commissioner resigned in protest
On February 17, 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency fired 89 staff within FDA's Human Foods Program, eliminating specialists in nutrition, infant-formula safety, food-safety response, and chemical-safety review. FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones resigned the same day, calling the cuts "indiscriminate" and warning they would undermine the administration's own stated food-safety and nutrition goals.
Trump signed EO 14210 ordering mass federal workforce reductions and granting DOGE political veto over career hiring
On February 11, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14210, directing all federal agencies to begin large-scale reductions in force and imposing a 1:4 hiring cap allowing no more than one new hire per four departures. The order required DOGE-designated team leads to approve all new career civil service appointments, inserting a political veto into the merit-based hiring system the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 was designed to protect from partisan control. Agency DEI offices and units performing non-statutory functions were identified as priority targets for elimination.