The interim commissioner of the Social Security Administration now says that “the agency is not closing” after suggesting that it could do so following the decision of a judge that limits the access of the efficiency department to the data of the confidential agency.
Laland Dudek, the agency’s interim chief, said In a statement on Friday He received “explanatory guidance” on the judge’s temporary restriction order related to Doge’s activities.
“Therefore, I’m not closing the agency,” he said in the statement. “President Trump supports to keep the Social Security offices open and obtain the correct check to the right person at the right time. SSA employees and their work will continue under the [temporary restraining order]”
A signal for the United States Social Security Administration is seen outside its headquarters in Woodlawn, Maryland, on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, INC through Getty Images)
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, INC through Getty Immage
In an order on Thursday, the United States District Judge, Ellen Lipton Hollander, blocked the agency to grant the personnel affiliated with Dux access to agency systems that contain personal identification information.
In a series of interviews on Thursday and Friday, Doubek seemed to suggest that the blockade of the judge that blocks Lege of accessing the SSA data would force him to stop social security payments and block all employees of the agency’s systems.
“My anti-fraud team would be an affiliated with Dogs. My IT staff would be an affiliate of Doge,” he told Bloomberg news Thursday. “As it is, I will follow it exactly and I will finish the access of all SSA employees to our IT systems.”
He continued: “Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts discover how they want to direct a federal agency.”
And in a separate Washington Post interviewHe doubled, suggesting that “everything in the agency” deals with personal identification information, known as PII.
“Everything in this agency is PII,” said Dudek. “Unless I get a clarification, I will start turning it off. I don’t have many options here.”
The judge delayed Friday in a letter to a lawyer, writing that “any suggestion that the order may require the delay or suspension of benefits payments is incorrect.”
In the letter, he wrote that he was aware of the news reports with Dudek’s comments presenting his belief that practically all SSA employees would fall within the reach of their order and, therefore, would make the agency’s IT systems end.
“Such statements about the scope of the order are inaccurate,” the judge wrote. “SSA employees who are not involved with the Doge team or in the work of the Doge team are not subject to the order … In addition, any suggestion that the order may require the delay or suspension of the benefit payments is incorrect.”
AARP was one of several organizations that had criticized Dudek’s comments threatening to close the agency.
“Social Security has never lost a payment and AARP and our dozens of millions of members will not be maintained and let that happen now,” said senior vice president of Campaigns John Hishta in a statement.
