USAID is 1/3,030th of the budget..

Trump administration fighting court limitations around Treasury Department's sensitive payments system

From CNN's From Katelyn Polantz

The Trump administration is fighting a court order from Saturday that restricts political appointees from accessing a critical Treasury Department payment system responsible for processing trillions of dollars in federal funds.

Tom Krause, the top political appointee at Treasury and a key ally of Elon Musk, responded in court Sunday night, explaining for the first time his controversial role in leading DOGE’s review of the federal payments system.

Krause wrote to a judge that he had never had “direct or personal” access to the payment system or any of the associated data attached to the billions of federal payments it processes. Instead, Krause characterized his access to the system as “so-called “over the shoulder,” meaning he can “view BFS payment data, payment systems, and copied source code” being accessed by Treasury employees who did have access to the system.

Krause added that he doesn’t want himself, other top Trump administration employees and some low-level workers to be “hamstrung” by the court’s orders, according to his sworn statement.

Krause said in his declaration to the court on Sunday that he is following the court’s orders, even after becoming the assistant secretary that oversees the payments systems. As Fiscal Assistant Secretary, Krause is the first political appointee in modern history to oversee the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the arcane office in charge of the critical payments system.

However, Krause said Marko Elez, who was working with him on the system from DOGE, resigned before the court order was issued and had turned in all of the electronics he used to access the system to the department on Friday.

Why this matters: DOGE and Krause’s efforts at Treasury have come under intense scrutiny, prompting more than one emergency court fight.

Concerns about his and DOGE’s use of the systems are largely around access to private data, though the payments system, run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service in the Treasury Department, has several other sensitivities. In the filing Sunday, Krause acknowledged the “security and continued operation” of BFS “is crucial to the smooth functioning of the global economy.”

According to CNN reporting, Krause previously indicated he and at least one other Trump appointee wanted to use the system to turn off some outgoing government payments to USAID.