Here’s an extraordinary account of what led up to Michelle King’s firing as Acting Commissioner of Social Security and Lee Dudek’s elevation from the then Acting Chief of Staff, Tiffany Flick.
Here’s an extraordinary account of what led up to Michelle King’s firing as Acting Commissioner of Social Security and Lee Dudek’s elevation from the then Acting Chief of Staff, Tiffany Flick.
50 comments:
Sorry Tiff, you aren’t the guardian of SSA data and you don’t get to police it for “misinformation.” Easy dismissal for failure to state a claim and lack of standing.
Convincing and thorough. You’re quite a lawyer.
Are you Russo, Bobba, or Lee?
The allegations made here are frightening and should result in removal of the CIO
, Dudek and Bobba. They are going to steal the information and misuse the data.
Doesn’t management have to pay for their own legal fees in the federal government?
When the law finally closes in on Dudek he will grovel before Trump and beg for a pardon.
If Ms. Flick is correct, then people who don't know how SSA works, demanded source codes to computer programs that they didn't understand, that are vital for benefits processing. These programs can be broken by inexpert tinkering, which would cause massive service disruptions. The requestors were confirmed to be viewing highly private and sensitive information in SSA databases without required training, in an unsecure environment. It sounds like Ms. Flick faced a basic integrity test. Call out reckless and potentially illegal behavior that harms the public, or play along with it. She passed the test. Others failed.
Is Dudek smart enough to realize that when the tide turns (which it always does) he is going to be in serious trouble? I hope he is keeping good memory joggers for when he is subpoenaed by Congress.
As other have mentioned, it seems more important that he and Russo have professional liability insurance.
She is not a party to the lawsuit. And she is not an employee of the federal government
When millions of retirees face eviction because their check wasn’t deposited on time, it will be the end for Presidents Musk and Trump.
Unfortunately, the law won't close in on Dudek as long as Trump runs the Department of Justice. Trump made it quite clear that a crime isn't a crime if it's done in service of his administration.
Major news outlets should have printed her statement to let the public know what's been happening with their data.
Unfortunately, SS fraud is not that rare, nor always that easy to discover. Guessing Tiff forgot about this one:
106 defendants indicted in Social Security disability fraud costing federal taxpayers hundreds of millions
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/106-defendants-indicted-social-security-disability-fraud-costing-federal-taxpayers
Then of course the most egregious one:
$550 Million Social Security Fraud Scheme
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/fugitive-lawyer-involved-largest-social-security-fraud-scheme-sentenced-15-years-prison-his
I guess we know who’s telling Leland what to do. Why not just make Russo the acting commish to begin with?
You realize 106 out of 50 million counts as pretty rare, right? Math is hard.
In the case you cited, the fraud is not WITHIN SSA, but the public trying to perpetuate it- of which Dudek should’ve been the one to catch being the head of the Fraud unit. Would also probably help if SSA wasn’t so underfunded and having individual workers buried in the work of 5 people.
This affidavit confirms Dudek was “appointed” before King, serving plunder th FVRA, resigned. Any “appointment” of Dudek was invalid under the SSA because he’s not an “officer” within the meaning of the SSA. When will Congress and the media catch this?
You realize SSA employees don’t even make the disability determinations? And SSA OIG, who had their leader dismissed by the current regime, helped discover this fraud? Of course you don’t. Knowledge and brain cells aren’t your thing.
These systems are incredibly complex and old. Her account sounds credible. She was well respected at the agency.
I'll add to that - this press release is from 11 years ago, and the headline writer seems to be bad at math. While the headline says the fraud cost taxpayers "hundreds of millions," the body of the press release tells a different story. The final sentence reads "To date, the average SSDI payment for charged defendants...is approximately $210,000." Multiplying that by 106 defendants get us a total loss of $22,260,000. Not chump change, but a far cry from the claim at the top of the press release. And not in a single year, but over a period of 26 years (1988-2014).
According to SSA's actuarial data at https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a6.html, over the same period, SSA paid out a total of $1,933,130,000,000. That's almost $2 trillion. So this fraud represented slightly more than 1 thousandth of a percent (0.00115%) of benefits paid in that time.
So not exactly rampant fraud.
Dudek... what a boot licker
Math is hard for you I see...
She literally was though. Everyone at SSA is a guardian of the data and personal information of millions of people. What an odd thing to say.
All employees are guardians of the SSA data, as she explained. It's a duty. And she was giving context and a time line.
Where can we get the rest of this case? Want to see the other related case documents.
Get a good lawyer Leland.
This resulted in fundamental changes to how decisions are made by ALJs and increased oversight throughout the agency. Laying off employees, allowing unsecure access to systems, and removing oversight would not have stopped this example.
Chasing the ghost of fraud does not warrant breaking the system.
Where are you quoting "misinformation" from? The declaration does not use the term even once. And the Commissioner's office is very much responsible for guarding SSA data. (See OMB Memorandum 16-24, "The head of the agency is ultimately responsible for ensuring that privacy interests are protected and that PII is managed responsibly within the agency.")
Google the term "PACER", and register for an account, then search the case number for the Maryland District Court.
Trumps Attorney General and Trump's Justice Department are not going to prosecute anyone who breaks the law for Trump.
That’s when State AG’s step in.
I hear Rudy Giuliani is available… wait didn’t he get disbarred? We can all overlook that small detail in the name of justice. Good luck Leland.
Russo has more clout as an insider techbro (he was at Shift4 with Jared Isaacman), so they need a useful idiot like Dudek to serve as a frontman/fall guy. It’s similar to how DOGE is supposedly run by some random lady on a beach in Mexico, but Musk gets to prance around with the chainsaw.
To be fair to all Ms. Flick accuses DOGE of spreading “mis/disinformation” about the program at paragraph 51. I believe that cheapens her case. Nothing criminal about speech.
And here we go with Sleazy E starting to replace fired civil servants with A.I. chatbots
https://gizmodo.com/doge-is-replacing-fired-workers-with-a-chatbot-2000573510
"Cheapens her case."
10:17 PM I couldn't disagree more. She expressed concern about the DOGE Dummies using SSA data to *create* mis/disinformation; not concerns that they would *find* mis/disinformation in SSA data. She has been proven correct over and over and over again - in no small part by the regime's repeated lies about 150+ year-olds and dead people getting checks.
Legal costs and liability should be the least of their problems - screwing with millions of the most vulnerable among us is dangerous.
12:46: In fact, she was one of the guardians of SSA data. Standing doesn't apply to declarants (she is not a party). And if you knew anything you were talking about, you would know the complaint will easily pass a motion to dismiss. That doesn't mean the plaintiffs will win, but they have alleged the violation of several federal statutes; if they can prove the allegations of the complaint, they should win.
Well said 12:46. The President is the Chief Executive. That makes him the boss of all the SESr's at SSA, including Tiffany and King. He gave them a series of orders - through his DOGE representatives - to carry out the directives he put in place for evaluating all executive department programs, budgets, spending, etc. As subordinates, neither Tiffany nor others at SSA get to ignore, deflect, resist or obfuscate based upon personal considerations of what might be the potential consequences of those orders. Surely she should understand that any fallout would be on the President and his designees, and it is her responsibility to carry out his directives without delay and with maximum cooperation. Her affidavit clearly characterizes her as a "deep state" operative looking to obstruct the President's agenda by any means she can conjure up.
Flick case
https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/AFSCME-et-al-v-SSA-Flick-Decl.-3.7.25.pdf
This is what happens when you chose a felon to be the President. It is FAFO time!
10:17 - DOGE and Elon and the rest of the administration have been putting out statements implying that they found wide-scale fraud at SSA based on their cursory review of your personal data - zombies and such. How is that not mis/disinformation? Maybe not criminal, but seems like there's been an effort to deceive the public, for sure.
Washington Post ran it this morning:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/10/musk-social-security-data-doge-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_the7&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F4183b3c%2F67cec3ddfcd4f90faf790a44%2F61cdbb3e9bbc0f251e673706%2F28%2F104%2F67cec3ddfcd4f90faf790a44
The case is American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO v. Social Security Administration, No. 1:25-cv-00596 (D. Md.). PACER is good, but it charges. Try Court Listener (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69664313/american-federation-of-state-county-and-municipal-employees-afl-cio-v/). More generally, see, Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions (https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/)
A "deep state" operative? LMFAO
So trying to protect the data of US citizens is “deep state”? Okay, Putin.
Dudek acts like some petulant child.
I find it humorous that people are attacking Lee Dudek. It's like blaming an attack dog for acting in a way that it was trained to do to show loyalty to its master. He is a mere byproduct of the current administration and to think that his actions are independent and insightful is foolish and self indulgent. I posit to all current SSA employees and recent removals to consider this - the current acting Deputy Commissioners and their long-term career SES are as responsible by providing Dudek with hastily planned realignments and reductions with no basis in fact. They should be considered unnamed co-conspirators!
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