Judge Blocks Musk's Illegal Breach Of Treasury, Consumer Confidence Drops, Let's Keep Making Our Calls People!

Join me in Bethesda, Maryland on Tuesday, February 18th!

Good morning all. Yesterday we talked about the potential power of the states to stop Elon Musk’s extraordinary and ongoing crime spree in the nation’s capital. Well, yesterday 19 state Attorneys General filed suit challenging Musk’s wildly illegal breach of The Treasury Department. This morning a Federal judge blocked Musk’s access and ordered that any information removed from Treasury be immediately destroyed. From The Washington Post (gift link):

NEW YORK — A federal judge issued an emergency order early Saturday prohibiting Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service from accessing personal and financial data on millions of Americans kept at the Treasury Department, noting the possibility for irreparable harm.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer’s decision also ordered Musk and his team to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any.”

The conditions are in place until another judge hears arguments on the matter on Feb. 14.

The ruling came hours after attorneys general from 19 states sued to stop Musk’s team from dealing with sensitive files during its review of federal payment systems — an unprecedented effort that skirted firm security measures that permitted access to systems only to trained Treasury employees.

In a four-page order, Engelmayer said the states that sued the Trump administration “will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief.”

“That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,” Engelmayer wrote.

He adopted arguments by the states that Treasury records from the agency’s Bureau of Fiscal Services can only legally be accessed by specialized civil servants “with a need for access to perform their job duties.”

Under the order, the Trump administration is prohibited from giving access to political appointees, special government employees or government employees that are not assigned to the Treasury Department. The White House has said that Musk has been designated a special government employee.

The lawsuit, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), says DOGE, a group operating under the direction of President Donald Trump, had no authority to access the Treasury Department’s systems and that doing so was a potentially massive cybersecurity and privacy risk.

“Defendants’ new expanded access policy poses huge cybersecurity risks that put vast amounts of funding for the States and their residents in peril,” says the lawsuit filed late Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. “All of the States’ residents whose [personally identifiable information] and sensitive financial information is stored in the payment files … are at risk of having that information compromised and used against them.”

James and the other state law enforcement officials warned that DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, has reportedly used a third-party, open-source artificial intelligence system to process data from other agencies recently, sparking fears that Treasury Department records could be mishandled.

In addition to New York, the states involved in the lawsuit are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

While we’ve had other wins in court this week this is a very big one. For those living in these 19 states that filed this suit please call your Attorney General first thing Monday morning and thank them. Praise and tag them on social media. Invite them to speak to your local groups. It is important we lift them up and thank them for stepping up in this time of enormous challenge. NY AG Attorney General Letitia James was the lead on the suit, and released this short video yesterday explaining why they went to court:

To understand the gravity of the Musk’s illegal cyber breach of Treasury, yesterday we learned that Treasury’s internal threat teams viewed Musk and his malicious posse as “the biggest insider threat risk the Bureau of Fiscal Services has ever faced.”

Here at Hopium we take the wins when they come and celebrate them, use them to learn, grow and get stronger. My friends this win is a big one, and let’s start off this Saturday celebrating it, together.

Consumer Confidence Falls, Huge Inflation Fears, Trump Is Struggling Out Of The Box - In my Thursday Fighting Hard, Fighting Smart video presentation and post we reviewed new polls showing Trump’s early approval rating taking a big hit - already - leaving him in leading independent polls with the worst job approval rating at this stage of an American Presidency since the advent of public polling in the 1950s. Yesterday we got the latest University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report and it too showed a meaningful drop. Here’s the summary of this month’s report:

Consumer sentiment fell for the second straight month, dropping about 5% to reach its lowest reading since July 2024. The decrease was pervasive, with Republicans, Independents, and Democrats all posting sentiment declines from January, along with consumers across age and wealth groups. Furthermore, all five index components deteriorated this month, led by a 12% slide in buying conditions for durables, in part due to a perception that it may be too late to avoid the negative impact of tariff policy. Expectations for personal finances sank about 6% from last month, again seen across all political affiliations, reaching its lowest value since October 2023. Many consumers appear worried that high inflation will return within the next year. Interviews for this release concluded on February 4.

Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped up from 3.3% last month to 4.3% this month, the highest reading since November 2023 and marking two consecutive months of unusually large increases. This is only the fifth time in 14 years we have seen such a large one-month rise (one percentage point or more) in year-ahead inflation expectations. The current reading is now well above the 2.3-3.0% range seen in the two years prior to the pandemic. Long-run inflation expectations ticked up from 3.2% last month to 3.3% this month. Long-run inflation expectations remain elevated relative to the 2.2-2.6% range seen in the two years pre-pandemic.

As you can see from this graph below, consumer sentiment is running 30-35 points lower right now then during Trump’s first term. If the perception that Trump could make the economy work as in his first term was key to his victory and brand strength, this data suggests on this critical measure he is really struggling of the box in these early days.

The Ridiculous Muskian Federal Buy-Out - From The NYTimes:

When the federal Office of Personnel Management first proposed a “deferred resignation” package to induce federal workers to quit last week, Elon Musk circulated an estimate that the offer could lure 5 to 10 percent of the government’s work force to leave. That estimate so far looks like an overshoot.

By midday Friday, with the original Thursday deadline to accept the offer now paused by a federal judge, more than 65,000 workers had planned to resign, said McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson for O.P.M. That number — which could still rise further amid legal uncertainty — represents less than 3 percent of all 2.3 million federal workers, excluding the military and Postal Service.

For perspective, about 150,000 federal workers, or 7 percent, voluntarily leave the government every year. The scale of resignations submitted as of Friday — offered in exchange for seven months of pay and benefits — would be the equivalent of five months’ worth of departures, many of which might have happened this year anyway.

Things To Do, Fighting Hard, Fighting Smart - Our calls are working my friends:

Calling our reps, helping them understand what is expected of them now, has become one our most powerful tools in these early, ugly days of Trump. I want to make a plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it is critical that we all do our part now.

My three current recommendations for the week ahead:

• Keep calling to stop Musk’s crime spree and assault on the US government. Encourage your Senators and Reps to file a criminal referral for him and his malicious posse to DOD/FBI. Feel free to add that you would like funding for USAID restored so our government does not kill millions and millions of people this year in our name.

• Keep calling Attorneys General in the states. Ask them to protect you and your data/privacy, and to keep federally mandates monies flowing to the states. For those in the 19 states who brought this Treasury suit thank them and encourage them to keep going. I still believe these 19 should make a criminal referral to DOJ/FBI this week, and ask them to arrest and stop Musk.

• Demand full NIH funding for biomedical research be restored. For more on this emerging story read this Washington Post story. The persistent cutting of Congressional mandated programs in the middle of a fiscal year is an extraordinary abuse of power by Trump, and it needs to be challenged on every front.

Our Daily Reminder:

Trump 2.0 is a profound, ongoing betrayal of America, and everything that has made this remarkable nation the most powerful and prosperous in the world. It is why we must fight. As dark as all this is, we cannot for one moment forget that what Trump is doing is wrong; he and his project remain deeply unstable and his coalition fractious; he is doing deeply unpopular things, going far beyond his narrow “mandate;” he is old, impulsive, reckless and clearly in decline; and extremists and ideologues are often far better at bread and circuses than governing.

For those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work, we have three Hopium-backed efforts we are rallying behind right now:

Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. On Saturday night we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly over 950 of you have donated over $95,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start.

Note that two other good friends of Hopium - David Hogg and Jane Kleeb - were elected Vice Chairs of the DNC this weekend (Jane was elected head of the ASDC which also makes her a DNC Vice Chair). You can watch my inspiring interviews with David here, and with Jane here and learn more about where they want to take the party in the days ahead.

Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government. We’ve raised more than $25,000 so far towards our March 31st goal - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I am asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all. More on this critical election in the coming days. Our goal is to raise $50,000 by April 1st. We’ve raised $17,000 so far - thank you all!

Finally, I will be doing an in-person event in Bethesda, Maryland on Tuesday, February 18th. Learn more and register here. Look forward to seeing folks!

Keep working hard all. We had a big win today. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon