Months after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency were found in the Federal Communications Commission directory, the FCC is being accused of slow-walking demands for information about what they did there.
On February 24th, advocacy group Frequency Forward and journalist Nina Burleigh filed a public records request to the FCC, seeking details about DOGE’s activities and whether they created conflicts of interest with DOGE creator Elon Musk. But the FCC has so far produced largely useless documentation that creates more questions than answers. Now, DOGE’s role is among the many topics FCC Chair Brendan Carr could face during a highly anticipated oversight hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
Frequency Forward and Burleigh asked in their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all documents related to DOGE personnel accessing FCC data or records, meetings between DOGE and FCC staff, onboarding of DOGE employees, and travel by Carr to any entities related to Musk. They hoped to uncover potential conflicts of interest created by embedding DOGE in an agency that regulates one of Musk’s companies, SpaceX, as well as its competitors. They wanted to know if DOGE was accessing sensitive systems and information, as well as how its work impacted the FCC, whose functions include approving many electronic devices and managing spectrum.
But the agency has produced little that casts light on DOGE’s operations. It has released 1,079 pages of documents, nearly all of them within the past few weeks, comprised mainly of spreadsheets, an ethics manual, and an already public FCC order. The FCC says it is still processing 900 pages that include records it needs to consult with other agencies about before releasing. The FCC did not respond to a request for comment on the FOIA battle or the DOGE staffers.
While delays may have been exacerbated by the 43-day government shutdown, Frequency Forward and Burleigh have accused the FCC of “acting in bad faith” and “intentionally seeking to delay” court proceedings. The FCC has denied that’s the case in court filings. The group sued the FCC on April 24th, alleging a breach of the FOIA laws, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered the agency to make its final production by January 16th, 2026. After that, it must detail the reasons it could not release the remaining documents, giving Frequency Forward a chance to argue for their publication.
“The documents that have been produced so far are interesting not so much in what they show, but in what they don’t show,” says Arthur Belendiuk, an attorney carrying out the FOIA case against the FCC and a former employee at the agency. They include relatively limited information about what DOGE staffers were working on, what systems they had access to, and which of them were even fully onboarded.
The pages produced so far include resumes, financial disclosure forms, and emails from DOGE employees who The Verge first reported were listed in the FCC directory: Tarak Makecha, Jordan Wick, and Jacob Altik. (Makecha was technically on loan from the Office of Personnel Management, according to the emails.) All three remain listed in the public directory with FCC emails as of Tuesday, though depending on their start dates, their expected 120-day terms at the agency have likely already expired.
Do you have information about DOGE and the FCC? Reach out securely and anonymously with tips from a non-work device to Lauren Feiner via Signal at laurenfeiner.64.
A March email describes Makecha as a software engineer from OPM, Wick as a software engineer from DOGE, and Altik as an attorney from DOGE. In letters to the FCC’s general counsel, Makecha and Wick propose “to provide support, expertise, and guidance” on FCC operations and IT systems and to help improve “efficiency, transparency, and responsibility.” In a March 18th email, the FCC’s chief of staff Scott Delacourt gave permission for FCC employees to “discuss non-public information with the DOGE team.” Also in March, FCC employees helped arrange a meeting between the DOGE staffers and Carr at the FCC.
The documents shed some light on a claim Carr made in an April 30th letter to Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-WA), where he claimed that only two people from DOGE had joined the FCC. In an April email chain discussing a request for comment from The Verge about the DOGE directory listings, Carr’s chief of staff, Greg Watson, wrote that he was “under the impression” that Altik was “never fully on-boarded.” Following a redacted response from another FCC staffer, he wrote that he agreed with “the recommendation to ignore,” and The Verge never got a response to that request. A response from Carr to his staff regarding the email containing The Verge’s request, along with two unrelated press requests, is redacted.
... continue reading