In an extremely unusual move, five former Treasury Secretaries wrote a warning letter to the nation Monday sounding alarm over moves made by President Donald Trump.
Robert E. Rubin, Lawrence H. Summers, Timothy F. Geithner, Jacob J. Lew and Janet L. Yellen — all of whom served in Democratic administrations — put their names to an article published in the New York Times.
In it, they voiced fears that actions taken in the past few days could be devastating for the democracy.
“While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming,” they wrote.
“We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.”
The five suggested that Trump was working to “unlawfully undermine the nation’s financial commitments.”
“Regrettably, recent reporting gives substantial cause for concern that such efforts are underway today,” they wrote.
They were specifically referring to Elon Musk and his team gaining access to Treasury databases containing all sorts of sensitive information.
Historically, they wrote, “A very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants” ran the government’s payment system. That has “been compromised by political actors from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest.
“They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power subjects America’s payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries. And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care.”
Musk’s move has been — at least temporarily — blocked by a federal judge, who stated that the government’s purse strings had to be controlled by Congress.
But they still feared Musk’s involvement was a dire threat.
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They concluded, “Many people and entities depend on Treasury’s faithful disbursement of federal funds: Social Security checks arrive each month. Veterans receive their benefits. Medicare providers are reimbursed. Federal workers, members of the military and businesses that provide goods and services to the government are all paid on time and in full. Holders of outstanding federal debt receive interest payments.
“People often rely on these funds for survival, making any risk of their cutoff or delay existential. But even more than the importance of making good on particular commitments is the importance of making good on the principles that this country stands for. We have during our service in the Treasury Department faced moments of crisis, when the specter of an American default loomed. Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default. And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.”
