The short-term chief of the Social Safety Administration ought to resign for “outrageous” political retaliation in opposition to the state of Maine, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) mentioned Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the Social Safety Administration canceled contracts with Maine’s well being division that had allowed dad and mom to request Social Safety numbers for newborns on the hospital, which is how 99% of newborns get their numbers within the U.S.
The contracts have been shortly reinstated amid suspicion they’d been terminated as payback for Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) standing as much as President Donald Trump in a White Home assembly in February.
This week, Leland Dudek, the appearing commissioner of Social Safety, acknowledged he was “upset” with Mills for defying the president.
“We’ve now learned that the acting head of the SSA did, in fact, punish our state for daring to question the President. This is absolutely outrageous,” Pingree mentioned in a press release.
“I believe Secretary Dudek should resign immediately ― or be removed from his position,” Pingree mentioned. “The SSA is simply too important, and affects the lives of too many people, for it to be led by someone who is willing to throw an entire state into turmoil, all because its Governor refused to be intimidated by the actions of a President who is acting illegally.”
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The Social Safety Administration and the White Home didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Dudek instructed HuffPost throughout a press name on Tuesday night that he canceled the contracts by mistake as a result of he didn’t perceive them, but additionally that he didn’t like how Mills behaved within the February assembly when she instructed Trump she would “see you in court” over his efforts to pressure states to disallow transgender athletes from taking part in women’ sports activities.
“I think when you bring people together to have a cordial exchange, to show governments working together, you need to be respectful of each other,” Dudek mentioned.
Dudek denied it was political retaliation, however supplied no different purpose for the contract cancellations, which additionally affected digital loss of life data. Each state has comparable contracts; no different state noticed theirs canceled.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) beforehand mentioned the episode “left many unanswered questions about the Social Security Administration’s motivations,” however neither he nor different members of the Maine congressional delegation responded to requests for touch upon Wednesday. Nor did the Republican chairs of the Home and Senate committees that oversee Social Safety.
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the highest Democrat on the Home Methods and Means Committee, mentioned in a press release that Dudek “admitted to canceling contracts out of pettiness” and is working Social Safety into the bottom on the path of Trump and Elon Musk, the senior White Home adviser in control of downsizing federal businesses.
Trump tapped Dudek for appearing commissioner final month after his predecessor within the function refused to grant Musk’s workforce entry to delicate Social Safety databases. The Senate Finance Committee is about to carry a listening to with Frank Bisignano, the person Trump picked to succeed Dudek, subsequent week.
Dudek has drawn up plans for layoffs, consolidated inner bureaucracies and introduced modifications to customer support that may require extra seniors to go to Social Safety places of work in particular person.
“I’ve had to make some tough choices, choices I didn’t agree with, but the president wanted it and I did it,” Dudek mentioned in a closed-door assembly earlier this month, in line with a recording obtained by ProPublica. It’s not clear what selections Dudek had in thoughts but it surely’s doable he was speaking about Maine’s “enumeration at birth” and “electronic death records” contracts.
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Pingree alleged a broader sample of retaliation in opposition to Maine, pointing to the Trump administration canceling a grant for Maine fisheries and quickly withholding $100 million from the College of Maine System.
“Ever since Governor Mills stood up to the President to defend the laws and values of our state, there have been several instances where the Administration seems to have singled out Maine for retribution,” Pingree mentioned. “The chaos and confusion all this has caused is unconscionable.”
