Feb. 25 (UPI) — Twenty-one Department of Government Efficiency employees on Tuesday tendered their group resignation in opposition to DOGE actions that they say endangers critical systems and American’s data.
“As civil servants, we remained committed throughout the presidential transition to delivering better government services through technology and stood ready to partner with incoming officials,” the group-resignation letter says.
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the group said. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments at the United States DOGE service.”
The group said each member completed a 15-minute interview with individuals wearing White House visitor badges on Jan. 21, but several of the interviewers refused to identify themselves.
The interviewers asked about political loyalties and tried to “pit colleagues against each other” while demonstrating a limited amount of technical ability, the group said in the resignation letter.
The group also said a third of the former U.S. Digital Service staff were fired on Feb. 14 after receiving emailed and anonymous termination letters.
Two days later, “DOGE representatives began integrating us into their efforts,” the group said.
“DOGE’s actions — firing technical experts, mishandling sensitive data and breaking critical systems — contradict their stated mission of ‘modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,'” the group said.
“These actions are not compatible with the mission we joined the United States Digital Service to carry out: to deliver better services to the American people through technology and design,” the group said.
The U.S. Digital Service is what the Trump administration converted into DOGE after President Donald Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20.
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data or dismantle critical public services,” the group said.
“We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”
Eight of those who resigned indicated they are engineers, five said they are product managers, four are designers, two listed their position as engineer-data scientist, and two more listed their former position as “operations.”
The group resignation letter was addressed to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields downplayed the group resignation.
“DOGE has effectively become part of the USDS as a component of the White House,” Fields said in a statement to NBC News.
“Any leftover career bureaucrats who don’t align with the president or DOGE are neither advised nor welcomed to be a part of this never-before-seen mission to make the government more efficient,” Fields said.
Elon Musk in a post on X called the 21 DOGE staffers who resigned “Dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office” and said they would have been fired if they had not resigned.
DOGE employee Katie Miller in a separate X post called the 21 former DOGE employees “full remote workers who hung trans flags from their work spaces,” NBC News reported.
