Feel Good Story of the Day: He Was Suspended for Helping DOGE; Now He Runs the Agency

We all know that there is ferocious resistance to Trump’s policies within the federal bureaucracy. 

But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of support for Trump’s goals as well. It’s just that the people who control the levers of power are in a position to squelch the support of those who do. 

Leland Dudek learned that lesson the hard way: he decided to work with DOGE despite his boss’s opposition, and he was suspended for doing so. But a funny thing happened in Trump’s federal government: Dudek wound up with the top job while the bosses who were impeding him were shown the door. 

“I confess. I asked where the fat was in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.”

Dudek is an example of how there are some fiscally conscious career feds, and how DOGE can maximize impact through people who know where the bodies are buriedhttps://t.co/O3Duk3yKgV

— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) February 19, 2025

It doesn’t usually work this way. Nice guys finish last. The bad guy gets the girl. Backstabbers climb the ladder fastest. 

You know the story as it usually happens. But not this time. 

Leland Dudek was an obscure bureaucrat at the Social Security Administration who dedicated his career to stopping fraud. But when he worked with the Department of Government Efficiency to do just that, he came close to being fired.

“At 4:30pm EST, my boss called me to tell me I had been placed on administrative leave pending an Investigation,” Dudek wrote on LinkedIn. “They want to fire me for cooperating with DOGE,” he wrote in a now-deleted post obtained by The Daily Wire.

Then, a stunning reversal occurred. It was Acting Social Security Commissioner Michelle King who was out of a job. And Dudek was reinstated with a big promotion — taking her job leading the massive agency on an interim basis.

The Washington Post reported that King exited the agency after refusing to let DOGE access agency data and was replaced by Dudek. But it has not been reported that managers at the agency had moved to punish Dudek as he cooperated with the efficiency czars.

The LinkedIn post said “I confess. I helped DOGE understand SSA. I mailed myself publicly accessible documents and explained them to DOGE. I confess. I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team. I confess. I asked where the fat was and is in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.”

“I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done,” it continued. “Everything I have ever done is in service to our country, our beneficiaries, and our agency.”

Dudek isn’t going to stay in the top job forever. Trump has a nominee to fill the role, but he jumped over dozens of more senior figures who toed the line against working with the president’s DOGE team. 

According to people familiar with his employment, Dudek was a senior General Schedule employee at SSA, a status that is below the agency’s Senior Executive Service—meaning he bypassed dozens of members of the agency’s leadership when he was appointed acting commissioner.

One person familiar with Dudek described him as someone who could be unconventional or willing to skirt the rules to get results, but was passionate about the work of fighting fraud.

Dudek told staff in an email Monday night that he will lead the agency “in an open and transparent manner,” saying his first call went to the SSA’s Inspector General’s office. “Transparency is at the heart of good government,” he said in the email reviewed by the Journal.

Since Dudek’s ascension, DOGE officials have had access to the agency’s Enterprise Data Warehouse, according to people familiar with the matter. The EDW is a centralized database that includes records on individuals who have been issued a Social Security number or have applied for or received Social Security benefits, including wage, tax and bank account information.

Bureaucrats tend to view their fiefdoms as inviolable. If a man’s home is his castle, a bureaucrat’s bureau is his kingdom. When the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration warned that millions of people on the books clearly didn’t or no longer lived, the agency waved the problem away as insignificant. 

Nobody could tell the bureaucrats to clean up the books!

MSNBC: The Social Security Administration made ~$72 billion in improper payments over an eight-year period, according to an Inspector General audit.@jdbalart: “$72 billion — and that’s without a comprehensive search! I mean, that’s significant.” pic.twitter.com/9D621F29Zf

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 18, 2025

Do we have any idea how much goes out the door fraudulently? Only in vague terms. It could be as little as $10 billion/year, or as much as … the sky is the limit, because the data is so bad. 

We could save one trillion dollars a year, yet the Democrats are fighting it! Democrats hate America! pic.twitter.com/zLixng3J0M

— Kelly (@kellytx2) February 12, 2025

As I wrote earlier in the week, Washington bureaucrats are terrified. Searches of criminal defense attorneys on Google have skyrocketed in DC by 4-500%, making the city the epicenter for such searches in the country. 

Does that imply mens rea? It sure IMPLIES that people think they did something wrong, but perhaps these people are just being cautious. After all, going after your political opponents is what the Democrats did…