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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
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Supervisors in the U.S. Department of Justice are telling workers not to respond to the federal government-wide order to list recent work accomplishments—an Elon Musk order that DOJ workers fear will lead to ethics violations.
Five people who know about the situation say that at least five DOJ office leaders quickly replied to the HR email—the latest order from Musk’s government efficiency team—by telling their staff not to go into too much detail about their work until they got more information.
Two people who worked for two of the US attorneys’ offices said that coworkers were told that the support office for all 93 US attorneys was trying to get advice from DOJ leadership on how to comply or even if the email was real, Bloomberg Law reported.
All federal employees were given two days by the government’s human resources office on Saturday to provide five bullet points summarizing their actions from last week. Within an hour, DOJ managers rushed to reassure their workers, said people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal office matters.
Sources say that DOJ lawyers are worried that telling a grand jury about details of an investigation that aren’t open to the public, like evidence, would be unethical behavior on their part as lawyers.
When told about the advice from department office chiefs, a DOJ spokesman replied, “The opposite is true—DOJ has sent guidance that employees should respond.”
Sources reportedly told Bloomberg that the department’s workforce has yet to receive updates from supervisors, but that “guidance was sent to component heads urging compliance.”
Musk wrote on social media Saturday that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
At least one notable exception to the orders to refrain from replying existed. Ed Martin, the dedicated Trump loyalist leading the US attorney’s office in Washington, authorized his staff to proceed.
“DOGE and Elon are doing great work! History. We are happy to be participate,” Martin told his office, according to an email he posted on X. “Please respond to the HR email carefully with regard to confidentiality and our duties. Be general if you need to. If anyone gives you problems, I’ve got your back. You’re good.”
The Saturday afternoon message from the Office of Personnel Management advised government workers not to send “classified information, links, or attachments.”
Musk’s DOGE made headlines earlier this week with another explosive revelation.
The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency found that the Biden-Harris administration had awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts to an unexpected group: children.
An agency announcement revealed that the Small Business Administration disbursed $312 million in payments to companies whose purported owners are under the age of 11.
This disclosure comes as DOGE works to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending.
“While it is possible to have business arrangements where this is legal, that is highly unlikely for these 5,593 loans, as they all also used an SSN with the incorrect name,” the agency wrote. “@DOGE and @SBAgov are working together to solve this problem this week.”
During the announcement, DOGE also disclosed that an additional $333 million was distributed in 3,095 loans between 2021 and 2022 to businesses owned by individuals aged 115 or older.
In one case highlighted by Fox News, a 157-year-old business owner received a total of $36,000 in grants, including funds from the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan, which were designed to help businesses survive shutdowns.
In cases involving businesses allegedly owned by children, Biden administrators approved nearly 5,600 such loans between 2020 and 2021—almost all of which were forgiven without repayment after the owners pledged to use the funds to avoid staff layoffs.
All said, however, Americans’ trust in DOGE remains robust: Recent polls show that 72% back its mission, and Trump has even suggested that “DOGE dividends” could be returned to taxpayers as checks from the resulting savings.
The Trump administration recently secured a major legal win when U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sided with DOGE last week regarding its freeze on $2 billion in payments to contractors for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).