Social Security Administration Acting Commissioner Michelle King has stepped down from her role at the agency, a Trump administration official confirmed to CBS News.
King was replaced by Leland Dudek, who oversaw the SSA fraud investigation office, and then she resigned, according to this official.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields on Monday wrote on social media about the news, “President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.”
The White House did not provide a specific reason for King’s departure. CBS News has reached out to the SSA for comment.
Nancy Altman, the president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, told CBS News they heard from SSA employees that officials from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, had been trying to get access to the Enterprise Data Warehouse — a centralized database that serves as the main hub for personal, sensitive information related to social security benefits such as beneficiary records and earnings data. Altman was told King had been resistant to giving DOGE officials access to the database.
“She was standing in the way and they moved her out of the way. They put someone in who presumably they thought would cooperate with them and give them the keys to all our personal data,” Altman said,
The Washington Post first reported King’s departure.
King’s exit from the administration is one of several departures of high-ranking officials concerned about DOGE staffers’ potential unlawful access to private taxpayer information.
DOGE has accessed Treasury payment systems and is attempting to access Internal Revenue Service databases.
Since Mr. Trump has retaken the White House, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk and DOGE have rapidly burrowed deep into federal agencies.
Altman told The Associated Press, “There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is. And my understanding is that it has already occurred.”
“The information collected and securely held by the Social Security Administration is highly sensitive,” she said. “SSA has data on everyone who has a Social Security number, which is virtually all Americans, everyone who has Medicare, and every low-income American who has applied for Social Security’s means-tested companion program, Supplemental Security Income.”
“If there is an evil intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned,” she said.
The future of Social Security has become a top political issue and was a major point of contention in the 2024 election. About 72.5 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children, receive Social Security benefits.
