The most alarming thing I’ve seen so far today is that Elon Musk and the DOGE boys appear to have gotten control of a sensitive payment system at Treasury through which the U.S. government pays out funds. From WaPo: (This is the last day of January, and I’m out of this month’s gift links for the Washington Post and New York Times, sorry.)

Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

The clash reflects an intensifying battle between Musk and the federal bureaucracy as the Trump administration nears the conclusion of its second week. Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources, and the General Services Administration, which manages real estate. (Musk was seen on Thursday visiting GSA, according to two other people familiar with his whereabouts, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. That visit was first reported by the New York Times.) His Department of Government Efficiency, originally conceived as a nongovernmental panel, has since replaced the U.S. Digital Service.

The executive order Trump signed creating DOGE also instructed all agencies to ensure it has “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems,” which would appear to include the Treasury payment systems.

It is unclear precisely why Musk’s team sought access to those systems. But both Musk and the Trump administration more broadly have sought to control spending in ways that far exceed efforts by their predecessors and have alarmed legal experts.

Musk somehow forced out the very senior guy at Treasury who oversaw this payment system. And it’s hard to know how much of this is Trump and how much of it is Musk. It wouldn’t surprise me if Musk is grabbing up more power and access than Trump realizes. If Musk controls the payment system, he can stop payments at his discretion, and create new payments nobody knows about. Congress? Congress?

A preliminary report on the DC crash says that the air traffic control tower was short staffed. From The New Republic:

An internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration found that in reality, the tower’s staffing at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to The New York Times. There was only one air traffic controller to handle both helicopters and planes in the airport’s vicinity, a job usually assigned to two people. …

…. Staffing levels at the airport’s control tower have been below adequate levels for years, like many of the U.S.’s other airports. DCA’s tower only had 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to congressional reports. This is well below the FAA and air traffic controller union’s preferred number of 30, and is due to employee turnover and budget cuts, according to the Times.

As a result, many air controllers at the airport work up to 10 hours a day and six days a week. Those levels probably have not been helped by Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze, his gutting of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and the FAA chief’s resignation at Elon Musk’s behest. As much as Trump and the right might try to blame DEI or something else ludicrous, perhaps they should look in the mirror.

There is also reporting that the helicopter may have deviated from its approved path.

But guess what? FAA employees, including air traffic controllers, got another “buyout” offer email YESTERDAY. New York Times:

In a mass email sent to federal employees just before 8:30 p.m. — almost exactly 24 hours after an air crash in Washington that killed 67 people — the Office of Personnel Management encouraged F.A.A. workers, including air traffic controllers, to look for new jobs outside of government, where they might have an opportunity to be more productive.

“We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” stated the email, which was reviewed by The New York Times. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

The message, in the form of “F.A.Q.s” — or Frequently Asked Questions — suggested that if the employees agreed to depart, they could take a second job or travel to their “dream destination” while still on the public payroll for months before leaving permanently. But employees have been informed over the years that it is illegal for them to take a second job while working for the federal government, raising questions about whether the government can deliver on that offer.

It also came after President Trump, in public comments, blamed efforts to diversify the air traffic controller work force as a contributor to the crash, saying hiring standards had been too lax. He provided no evidence for his assertions about air traffic controllers, a field plagued for years by staffing shortages.

Again, the emails urging federal employees to resign are coming from Elon Musk’s people. Musk is turning into a bigger danger than Trump.

I also want to call you attention to Dana Milbank’s column today. So I’ll just quote a big chunk of it.

A reporter asked whether he was really blaming the crash on DEI.

“It just could have been,” Trump said.