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.
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.
Lambert here: Of course, “that same night” ≠ “in the middle of the night.”
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