Trump Team Changed a Report to Hide How Bad DOGE Made Things
The Washington Post revealed Thursday that the Trump administration altered a Social Security report to make call wait times appear shorter than they actually were.The report, produced in December by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general, portrayed the average wait time for callers to speak to a representative as having dropped to under 10 minutes. SSA Commissioner and Trump loyalist Frank Bisignano cited the document as proof that DOGE layoffs and “staffing realignments” were helping to improve the department’s inefficiency.Just one problem: An earlier draft of the report stated that the “total wait time” for callers to connect with an SSA employee averaged 46 minutes to more than two hours last year.This key detail was deleted from the draft just prior to publication, according to the file’s version history accessed by the Post.The tinkering gives what is meant to be an independent audit a whiff of propaganda. And it’s just one example of what has been a focused assault on inspectors general—who are meant to be bipartisan overseers of government agencies—by the Trump administration. “After firing inspectors general at 19 agencies in an unprecedented purge in the early days of his second term, President Donald Trump has spent the past year nominating several new inspectors general with partisan backgrounds,” the Post wrote.Social Security Watch, an advocacy group, denounced the misleading report.“Inspectors general are the American people’s eyes and ears in these agencies,” Nancy Altman, the president of the group, said. “The Trump administration is undermining that oversight at every turn. Under this administration, the I.G. has no ability to conduct independent oversight. There is no meaningful check on the Trump administration’s Social Security sabotage.”