Emails Confirm Social Security Administration Canceled Maine Contracts As Political Payback

[Mr. Sparkle]

Source: Huffpost

Emails show that the Social Security Administration canceled contracts with the state of Maine as political payback against its Democratic governor. A week after Maine Gov. Janet Mills clashed publicly with President Donald Trump at the White House over transgender athletes in girls’ sports, Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of Social Security, asked his staff about what contracts Maine had with the Social Security Administration.

The agency has vital records contracts with every state, allowing parents to request Social Security numbers for their newborns at the hospital and to verify deaths through an electronic system. According to emails obtained by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Social Security staff informed Dudek that canceling the contracts “would result in improper payments and potential for identity theft.”

Dudek told his staff to go for it. “Please cancel the contracts. While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child,” Dudek wrote, referring to Mills. Canceling the vital records contracts would make it more difficult for the federal government to track births and deaths in Maine, hampering efforts to prevent fraud across government agencies, all of which use Social Security records to prevent improper payments.

Connolly called on Dudek to resign immediately. “The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration should serve the American people, not create waste, fraud, and abuse on the taxpayer’s dime,” Connolly wrote in a letter to Dudek laying out the email traffic. The Social Security Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/janet-mills-social-security-maine-leland-dudek_n_67ed2d99e4b0b937ab8f135c