SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Billionaire CEO Elon Musk isn't hanging out in Washington as much anymore, due in part to major policy disagreements and online feuds with President Trump as well as ongoing challenges managing his companies. But one of his major pet projects, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, lives on. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one DOGE staffer can now review and cancel tens of billions of dollars in government loans and payments to American farmers and ranchers. This is a group that makes up a big chunk of Trump's political base. NPR's Jenna McLaughlin has that exclusive reporting and joins us now. Hey, Jenna.
JENNA MCLAUGHLIN, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: So DOGE has not been in the headlines quite as much since Musk left the government. Catch us up on the status of this special government team.
MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, it's been a little bit of a busy news cycle, but even without Musk in D.C., DOGE has continued to find ways to burrow their way into these federal agencies. NPR put together a team to cover the federal restructuring and what DOGE has been up to back in February. We've been busy keeping track of everything that they've got going on. I've had a particular focus on DOGE's access to sensitive data, and that's how I started looking at the Department of Agriculture.
DETROW: OK, so what did you hear about what is happening at the Department of Agriculture?
MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, so I got to look at internal access logs that show that Jordan Wick, a former software engineer who used to work at Waymo, who's been publicly linked to DOGE, got high-level access to this government system, the one that controls tens of billions of dollars in subsidies and loans for millions of American farmers and ranchers. It lives inside part of the USDA called the Farm Service Agency. Think of it kind of like the agency's bank. Loans are a big part of what they do, but they also distribute subsidies for things like disaster relief - think major storms or the COVID-19 pandemic.
DETROW: OK, so he's in that system. What exactly can he and DOGE do with that access?
MCLAUGHLIN: A lot - first of all, he can see all that sensitive personal information. I mean, think about the kind of things that you have to send to the bank to apply for a loan. I'm pretty sure they know me better than my family after buying a house.
DETROW: Right.
MCLAUGHLIN: It's also possible that there could be demographic information, like race, in parts of that database. Advocates are worried that that data could be abused. But it's even more than that.
DETROW: Like what?
MCLAUGHLIN: Well, with this kind of access, Wick can write onto the system. And what that means is that he can change entries, cancel loans or payments. And that's in line with a memo I saw that went out to USDA staffers announcing that DOGE would be reviewing a big chunk of farm loans going forward. No other individual at the agency has this access. That's part of why the source who provided this information, and some of the others I spoke to, asked to be anonymous. They were worried about retaliation. When DOGE has gotten similar levels of access to databases at the Social Security Administration and the Treasury Department, it's been challenged in the courts.
We did eventually hear back from a USDA spokesperson after publication. They confirmed that the USDA Efficiency Team, including Wick, are full-time USDA employees and that they're working to fulfill President Trump's executive order to hunt for fraud and what they described as national security concerns, though they didn't really explain what that meant.
DETROW: OK, so here's an important question. Did you find any farmers who have had their loans canceled or changed because of this access?
MCLAUGHLIN: Not yet - and it turns out that might be a really hard question to answer. I spoke to Scott Marlow. He ran FSA programs under President Biden. He said some payments are seasonal. Farmers might not know right away if payments disappear, for example. He says he's telling farmers and ranchers he works with to keep a close eye on their loan terms, print out their files, make a list and check it twice.
Scott, I'll also point out that my source says it would be hard for senior officials to monitor what DOGE is up to inside the system because there aren't really safeguards or alerts for unusual activity when you have that level of access. Marlow tells me he would be concerned about anyone having that much access to USDA's systems without oversight. Take a listen.
SCOTT MARLOW: That ability to change without fingerprints is extremely troublesome in any - I don't care who it is - in any system.
DETROW: So that's the reaction on the expert level, the Washington level. What about farmers and ranchers who might be more directly affected by this?
MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, it's hard to be a farmer right now in general. They're distracted by tariffs, cuts to government programs, not to mention increasingly common natural disasters. I mean, just look at this awful flooding we're seeing in Texas and New Mexico. But specifically related to this, I spoke to Zach Ducheneaux. He's the former head of the Farm Service Agency under President Biden, but he's also a rancher from South Dakota. His family has had a ranch on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation for decades. He says farmers and ranchers are facing the fear of uncertainty. Having inexperienced people come in and hold up or threaten farmers' loans - he's worried that that will only make that uncertainty worse.
DETROW: That is NPR's Jenna McLaughlin. Thank you so much.
MCLAUGHLIN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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