Jonathan Kamens
I’m a remote worker in Boston. My understanding is one DOGE guy was brought in to the VA, Justin Fulcher. For a long time, he was the only one. He was just talking to people — wasn’t accessing any of the VA systems or digging around in any of the databases.
People thought they were positive conversations, and that he was serious about trying to improve the technology for the VA, because he’s a tech founder, a software engineer. People I heard from liked him and thought he was going to help the office of the chief technology officer (CTO) get more people so they could build better technology.
Before the inauguration, the Trump transition team had several meetings with USDS leadership. The leadership came back to the staff and reported to us that they thought those meetings went very well, that the Trump transition team was very interested in USDS, and they thought that was a good sign. When they said that, sirens were going off in my head, because if they’re interested in you, that means they figured out what they can use you for, and it’s not going to be good. And that is indeed what happened. What they wanted the USDS for was as a vehicle to get Musk and his droogs into the White House.
Justin Fulcher, maybe unknowingly, I think was doing the same thing at the VA. He was trying to convince people, “I’m here to help, you don’t have to be afraid of me, I’m going to help you do your jobs.” I would love to be proven wrong. If DOGE comes to the VA next week, to the office of the CTO where I work, and says, “We’re going to let you increase the size of your team, the security guy we just fired, we’re going to let you hire a replacement for him, we understand the work you do is important” — if that actually happened, I would be overjoyed. But it’s not what has happened anywhere else.
Auteur: Jonathan Kamens
