The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency is about to provide a staff member access to IRS data, causing the media and the Democrats to spin into a frenzy.
Gavin Kliger, a software engineer who works at DOGE, will be based at the IRS for 120 days, and he will reportedly have access to the tax agency’s data, according to a Monday report from CNN.
Kliger will work as a senior adviser for the IRS acting commissioner.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it,” White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told CNN about the move.
“DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on,” he added.
But CNN was deeply concerned about the fact that Kliger would receive access to private data, like Social Security numbers, bank account information, and tax returns.
The outlet breathlessly quoted a letter from Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in which they asked the acting commissioner to “immediately disclose to the Senate Committee on Finance the full extent of the potential access to IRS systems and data granted to DOGE team members.”
Wyden and Warren believe they need to know that information, so they can “address any efforts by DOGE personnel to gain access to taxpayer records at the IRS, which may constitute criminal violations of federal privacy laws.”
“As you are aware, tax returns and return information are subject to strong legal privacy protections,” the letter added, “allowing DOGE officials sweeping access these systems may be in violation of these statutes.”
Americans have heard much about who is able to access sensitive federal data as DOGE staffers, especially those on the younger side, use that information to highlight areas to downsize and streamline the government.
But the media did not care who had access to that data during the Biden years.
One report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed that as of September 2023, there were as many as 919 individuals who had access to unmasked IRS data.
The unmasked data contains personally identifiable information and “requires executive level approval” to access.
Roughly 20 of those individuals were “researchers and student volunteers.”
In other words, the media and the Democrats had no reason to be concerned about novices and young people accessing information in our government until the Trump administration came into power — and until that power was used to threaten the bureaucracy they love so dearly.
No matter how much Wyden, Warren, and their professional propagandists at CNN complain, these efforts toward government efficiency will continue.
If anything, it is more clear than ever that the Democrats have simply run out of ideas to stop it.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post As Legacy Media Freaks Over 1 DOGE Employee Getting IRS Access, We Learn Biden Gave 919 People Access appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.