Screenshot: MSNBC/X
In yet another desperate attempt to keep Donald Trump and his allies under legal fire, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is now threatening a nationwide class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration and Elon Musk over an alleged “data breach.”
Raskin claims that the Trump White House mishandled government data and that Musk’s newly created U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) played a role in the so-called security failure.
Appearing on “The Weekend” with Michael, Raskin floated the idea that Musk’s team of “Midnight fascist teenagers” somehow managed to access every American’s computer data.
His so-called legal argument hinges on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, a Reagan-era statute meant to prevent hacking.
According to Raskin, this law gives individual citizens the right to sue if their personal data has been compromised.
His master plan? A class-action lawsuit on behalf of every single American citizen against Trump, Musk, and DOGE.
Michael: Welcome, Congressman. I’m loving this theory—it’s very interesting. Explain to us how citizens can sue Elon Musk and Doge, and how 18 U.S. Code § 1030 can be applied.
Raskin:
So, the first thing to understand, Michael, is we are winning in the courts, and people need to understand that. Judge Giacob, in the District Court in the District of Columbia, just halted their efforts to out thousands—I think 6,000—FBI agents across the country for their involvement in prosecuting January 6th. Judge Kholar-Kotelly shut down the raid on the Treasury Department. So, the courts are doing their job.
I’ve been at rallies all week because a rally a day keeps the fascists away. But it was bugging me that these guys—Elon Musk’s midnight fascist crew of teenagers and twenty-somethings—have been able to access everybody’s computer data in the country. That’s why a lot of the courts are getting involved. But it was killing me because I wanted to spend some time with the statutes.
So, this weekend, I’ve been looking into the statutes, and one of them, which is becoming contested now, is called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. It was actually pushed by Ronald Reagan, who, at Camp David, had seen the movie WarGames and got very concerned about the security of government computers. He, with Congress, pushed for a statute to make it a crime to, on an unauthorized basis, obtain other people’s information and then distribute it.
There have been tons of criminal prosecutions under that. But if you read the statute, there’s also a private right of action. If you are a citizen—and you can integrate this with taxpayer privacy data statutes—if you are a citizen whose private data has been compromised through a breach of government computers, you can actually sue for damages.
What I’m thinking about—and talking to my friends at Democracy Defenders and other lawyers about—is: could there be a nationwide class action lawsuit to follow up on last week’s victory against Musk? Against the Trump administration for this breach in computer security and the data of all American taxpayers? It could be a class action suit on behalf of all Americans.
If the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers want to opt out and they don’t want their part of the money for the contamination of their data—fine, they can opt out. But really, it’s a suit on behalf of everybody because that’s our information. It doesn’t belong to Elon Musk or his little midnight crew. It belongs to the people, and the government has to hold it in trust.
Now, there are specific statutes which say that information can only be accessed for tax purposes—for the purposes of the Internal Revenue System—and for no other purposes. What are they using that information for?
WATCH:
LAWFARE: Jamie Raskin announces he is exploring “a class action suit on behalf of all Americans” against the Trump administration and Elon Musk —
— “for this breach in computer security and the data of all American taxpayers.”
Raskin willfully ignores the fact that the… pic.twitter.com/5YOz7aYIel
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) February 9, 2025
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