WASHINGTON ― 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.
The White House, however, criticized Mills, essentially taking ownership of Dudek’s decision to punish Maine.
“Governor Mills would rather cater to the anti-science and anti-women lunatics of the transgender movement than uphold her constitutional obligations to the laws of her state, and more importantly the Constitution,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in an emailed statement. “President Trump has been clear in his demands and the ball is in the Governor’s court. Choosing the rights of men who want to dominate women’s sports over the rights of vulnerable women and girls while blatantly ignoring federal law will not end well for the Governor and the people of Maine deserve better.”
Dudek previously admitted to HuffPost that he was “upset” with Mills, but he insisted the contracts looked “strange” to him, even though he also admitted that it had been a mistake to cancel them. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) called on Dudek to resign after he confessed his animus toward Mills.
After Dudek canceled the contracts, Maine announced parents would no longer be able to request Social Security numbers for their newborns when filling out birth certificate paperwork at the hospital ― the way it’s done for 99% of new babies in the U.S.
“As a result of SSA’s contract termination, effective immediately, Maine hospitals are no longer able to enroll newborns into Social Security at the time of birth so parents will now need to visit their local Social Security office to apply in-person for their child’s Social Security Number,” a spokesperson for Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services said in an email at the time.
Dudek reinstated the contracts in less than 24 hours amid an outcry from pediatricians and behind-the-scenes pressure from Maine’s congressional delegation. He said he hadn’t intended to create an “undue burden on the people of Maine,” though his internal email suggests otherwise.
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Dudek had been a mid-level IT staffer at Social Security before being put on administrative leave for helping Elon Musk’s DOGE team access sensitive databases inside the agency. The Trump administration tapped him to lead the agency after more senior officials refused to cooperate with Musk’s team.
Last month, Dudek threatened to shut the agency down altogether after a federal judge ordered DOGE affiliates to withdraw from Social Security databases containing sensitive personal information about Americans.