Ron Wyden Accuses Trump Social Security Nominee Of Lying About DOGE Contacts

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Social Security Administration said at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he has not been in close contact with the DOGE minions making controversial changes at the agency.

A whistleblower statement strongly suggests otherwise.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Frank Bisignano, the Wall Street executive Trump tapped for commissioner of Social Security, if he’d had contact with affiliates of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the team that’s been dismantling agencies and firing workers throughout the federal government.

“My first question is, between the time you were nominated and today, were you involved in discussions about DOGE or any of the operations, personnel or management decisions of those working in Social Security?”

“No, sir,” Bisignano said.

“That sounds like a reassuring response, but unfortunately, it’s not true,” Wyden said, adding that an agency whistleblower had provided a statement describing frequent contacts between Bisignano and DOGE affiliates.

The Social Security Administration in recent weeks has announced layoffs, buyouts, the consolidation of internal bureaucracies and a dramatic change to telephone service for members of the public starting next week. Leland Dudek, the agency’s acting commissioner, has said he’s making the changes at the direction of the White House.

Bisignano’s denial seemed like an effort to distance himself from the changes, but Wyden said he was lying, pointing to the whistleblower statement.

“I am aware of numerous contacts between Mr. Bisignano made with the agency since his nomination that have given me cause for question,” the unnamed whistleblower wrote in a March 24 statement provided by Wyden’s office. “While Mr. Bisignano was the unconfirmed nominee to lead the Social Security Administration, he frequently spoke with senior SSA executives and was personally briefed on key SSA operations, personnel and management decisions.”

Bisignano went on to say he had not spoken to the acting commissioner, but admitted, “I have talked to Mike Russo,” who became the agency’s chief information officer last month.

The whistleblower statement says Bisignano helped onboard a DOGE engineer named Akash Bobba, who was “ultimately sworn in over the phone that same night,” an account of events corroborated by a recent affidavit by a former Social Security official named Tiffany Flick. Bisignano denied the timing.

“I was not involved in onboarding anybody in the middle of the night,” he said Tuesday.

The whistleblower report suggests Bisignano was involved in more than just personnel, stating that “Bisignano was aware of concerns related to broad data access being requested by Mr. Russo for DOGE employees and that the request did not comport with privacy laws, disclosure policies, and agency internal controls.”

Later in the hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked Bisignano if he had anything to add about Wyden’s whistleblower.

“I don’t, really. I don’t know about the whistleblowers,” Bisignano said. “I brought – Mike Russo sent me a note and he came in as the CIO. I’ve known Mike Russo for a long time and that’s probably kind of it.”

The Social Security Administration declined to comment, but Arjun Mody, an official with the Trump transition team, denied that Bisignano had been collaborating with the DOGE team inside Social Security.

“Frank Bisignano is not in the agency and is not involved in any decision-making at the agency,” Mody said.

Bisignano himself declined to comment when approached by HuffPost after the hearing.

“Trump’s Social Security nominee just lied to the Finance Committee, claiming he hasn’t been involved in any DOGE plans to gut Social Security,” Wyden said on social media.