It appears that Team DOGE has taken another scalp, albeit this one does not appear intentional... perhaps.

David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues obtained by The Washington Post. President Donald Trump named Lebryk as acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.

Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration.

A spokeswoman for DOGE declined to comment. Lebryk could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

Lebryk's duties as acting secretary ended on Monday after Scott Bessent was confirmed and sworn in as Treasury secretary. As noted, the nature of Lebryk's dispute with DOGE officials is unclear at present.

Then there is the curious case of Census Bureau director Robert Santos, who also abruptly resigned on Friday.

BREAKING: U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Santos has announced his resignation.

— The General (@GeneralMCNews) January 31, 2025

Santos was the engineer (along with Joe Biden's Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimundo) of gaming the 2020 U.S. Census to include the counting of illegal aliens--a move that is being challenged in 2024 by four states' attorneys general. If you recall, Trump 1.0's first commerce secretary, Wilbur Louis Ross Jr., tried to add a citizenship question to the census and was beat down hammer and tong:

In February 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau developed criteria for the 2020 census, dubbed the "Residence Rule," stating that foreign nationals living in the U.S. are counted in the census and allocated to the state where their "usual residence" is located. The lawsuit notes how that was regardless of whether those foreign nationals are lawfully present in the U.S. and "regardless of whether any visa they may possess is temporary." 

After the 2020 census, the lawsuit says former President Biden's Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, as well as the Census Bureau and its director, Robert Santos, decided to include "illegal aliens and aliens holding temporary visas ('nonimmigrant aliens') in the census figures used for determining the apportionment of the House of Representatives and Electoral College votes." 

The lawsuit says the Residence Rule violates the Fourteenth Amendment's equal representation principle by "robbing the people of the Plaintiff States of their rightful share of political representation, while systematically redistributing political power to states with high numbers of illegal aliens and nonimmigrant aliens," as well as Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution by "necessitating an unconstitutional distribution of Electoral College votes among the states."

Not sure how much he can or cannot disclose, but expect these attorneys general to at least want Santos to be deposed. 

Finally, there is the curious case of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) chief executive Jeff Lyash. TVA is a federally-owned utility and one of the largest in the country. They provide flood control, generate electricity, manufacture fertilizer, and encourage economic development in the Tennessee Valley region, namely, most of Tennessee, Northern Alabama, Mississippi, and parts of Kentucky, along with sections of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is a behemoth and its CEO pulls in a hefty salary. In 2020, Trump 1.0 had been at odds with the then-TVA chair for hiring illegal aliens.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he had fired the chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority, criticizing the federal-owned corporation for hiring foreign workers.

Trump told reporters at the White House that he was formally removing chair Skip Thompson and another member of the board, and he threatened to remove other board members if they continued to hire foreign labor. Thompson was appointed to the post by Trump.

But at that time, Trump was also critical of Lyash and said he was overpaid.

President Trump on Monday said he fired the chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and called for the ouster of CEO Jeff Lyash, the nation’s highest-paid federal employee, noting that he received more than $8 million last year while moving to replace U.S. workers with foreigners.

“Let this serve as a warning to any federally appointed board: If you betray American workers, then you will hear two simple words — ’You’re fired,’” Mr. Trump said at the White House.

The president said he was removing TVA Chairman James “Skip” Thompson and another board member. He said the board must hire immediately a new CEO who “puts the interests of Americans first.”

Just 11 days into the new Trump administration, Lyash decided he needed to retire.

Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Jeff Lyash — the highest-paid federal employee with a compensation package of $10.5 million per year — abruptly announced that he was retiring 11 days after the return to office of President Trump, per NYP.

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) January 31, 2025

Imagine that? 

This one sounds like a pre-emptive strike, particularly with the Trump administration's renewed border enforcement and targeting of illegal aliens in the interior. Bureaucrats and executives rely on business as usual in Washington to keep doing their dirty deeds. It appears all of these men recognized that those days are no longer here.

Keep an eye out for what falls out from these departures, as it may reveal a great deal.