Lambert here: I’m having a hard time recalling any administrative action that Gleason actually took, though perhaps I haven’t dug deeply enough.
Amy Gleason, acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, denied responsibility for widespread government layoffs in a message to industry colleagues obtained by the Chronicle.
The April 2 message, the first statement by Gleason made public since her role in DOGE was announced, was sent in a nearly 300-person group chat of health care innovators.
Gleason’s role was revealed after initial secrecy and confusion over who was running the office. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to name Gleason as the acting administrator on Feb. 25, but a White House official confirmed her name to several outlets later that day. Gleason was not aware ahead of time that the White House planned to make her role public, the New York Times reported, and was in Mexico at the time.
Gleason attempted to clarify her role and responsibilities at DOGE for the group because of news coverage that she said is “confusing” and “often written to sensationalize rather than clarify.”
“Each agency has built its own internal Doge team per the executive order. Those employees work closely with senior leaders, but the decisions are made by agency leadership themselves,” Gleason said. “Agency heads and their teams are the only ones who can hire or fire people.”
“I currently serve as acting administrator of the U.S. Doge Service (formerly U.S. Digital Service). That’s separate from (1) the embedded agency Doge teams — who are hired directly into each agency — and (2) the broader Doge policy agenda that Elon Musk advises the President on,” Gleason said in the post.
“The only way that’s true and can be true is for her to say that she is an empty suit providing cover for what is being done in the name of DOGE,” Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told the Chronicle.
“There have been a number of incomplete disclosures, inconsistent statements and partial statements about how DOGE is operating and Ms. Gleason’s role, and we’re still trying to get answers to very basic questions that really any government agency should be proactively disclosing,” said Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counsel for open government nonprofit CREW, or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
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