San Gabriel Valley Democratic Congresswoman Judy Chu barged into Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson's Capitol Hill office Wednesday to confront him about Elon Musk and his DOGE team's access to the Treasury's government payments system.
She and fellow Democrat Gwen Moore of Wisconsin confronted the Speaker. "We wanted answers to the horrific news that an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, had access to the sensitive information of hundreds of millions of Americans; their tax information, their Social Security information, and actually has access to manipulating it, including stopping payments to certain people if he so desires," Chu told KNX News.
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The Congresswoman stressed how important she thinks this issue is, saying, "Just think, if he had unfettered access, he could decide who actually gets their Social Security payments or not, or a tax refund or not, and that is very, very alarming," she said.
According to Chu, Speaker Johnson told her he also had questions about the situation.
White House officials say Musk and his team are limited to 'read-only' access to the files, but Congresswoman Chu said she thinks that is simply untrue.
"A 25-year-old engineer named Marco Eli, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies, has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by this bureau, which actually makes 95% of the payments coming out of the US federal government, including Social Security, veterans payments, Medicare," she said.
"Therefore, he is not just able to read but to write code on these systems, which are the most sensitive in the US government."
A person present at the time of the confrontation told Politico that Chu and her colleague were incredibly rude and extremely aggressive, adding that Speaker Johnson was 'more than gracious' in his response.
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