New DOGE staffer appears to be young lawyer with surprising bio

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In the past few weeks we’ve learned that a team of young men has been assisting Elon Musk in gutting federal agencies by gaining access to highly-restricted digital systems. The Handbasket now believes one member of Musk’s team who Bloomberg reported gained access to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s systems appears to be a rising legal star with a surprising bio.

We’ve identified a Jeremy Lewin, 27, who until recently worked at Usha Vance’s former law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP—the same firm that has represented Musk’s Tesla in several high-profile cases—and attended Harvard Law School where he served as a research assistant for famed legal scholar and vocal Musk and Trump critic Laurence Tribe.

The Handbasket was able to identify a Venmo account belonging to this Jeremy Lewin that is friends on the platform with known DOGE engineer Gavin Kliger. The account is connected to Lewin’s personal email, is friends with his family members, and the avatar shows the same person as the one who appears on other public profiles belonging to him.

A Jeremy Lewin at DOGE

A man named Jeremy Lewin has been identified by The Guardian and Bloomberg as a member of the DOGE team, but no details about his background were offered in those stories. 

Lewin was granted access first to the General Services Administration (GSA) and now the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Friday, according to Bloomberg. They reported Lewin was given an email at the agency, along with access to all the CFPB’s data systems—including sensitive bank examination and enforcement records. Lewin was one of six DOGE workers that carried out Musk’s efforts to get access to protected information before effectively shuttering the consumer protection agency.

The Handbasket can confirm that Lewin has working emails at both the CFPB and GSA. We viewed a video showing DOGE staffers Luke Farritor, Nikhil Rajpal and Gavin Kliger entering the CFPB building Friday at 1 pm, though Lewin was not seen physically entering the building with them. An older man who arrived with the group stood watch outside the building’s front entrance as the others worked inside.

Questions about Musk’s access to business competitor information at the CFPB and Musk’s motivation to dismantle the consumer protection agency as he gears up to launch his own financial services on X are among myriad concerns about DOGE’s continued infiltration of government agencies, according to Democrat leaders like Senator Elizabeth Warren.

A rising law star

The Jeremy Lewin who worked at Munger is a Harvard Law graduate from the Boston area. At Harvard he studied constitutional law under prominent scholar Laurence Tribe and worked as his research assistant. The two penned op-eds together, including one for The New York Times in 2022 arguing that the US should liquidate Russia’s federal reserves and give it to Ukraine.

Tribe and Lewin also wrote for The Guardian in 2022 about the US Supreme Court’s assault on climate protection. Lewin wrote a solo piece for the publication in 2021 in which he critiqued Facebook’s oversight board, arguing for more moderation and writing that the oversight steps were simply designed “to give political cover while Facebook continues to allow dangerous content.” 

The Guardian’s recent reporting about Jeremy Lewin at DOGE did not mention a Jeremy Lewin writing for them in the past. Tribe, who has been highly critical of the new administration, did not respond to multiple emails and a phone call. 

"Elon Musk's claim that he has President Trump's go-ahead to shut down USAID is flatly illegal and unconstitutional," Tribe told Business Insider last week. In a podcast published Monday, Tribe called Musk and Trump’s actions a coup. 

After graduating from Harvard, Lewin worked as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP and WilmerHale, before clerking for Justice Judith Rogers at the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, according to Lewin’s now-deleted LinkedIn profile and bio page on the Munger website. Lewin’s resume indicated he began working at Munger in 2024.

Lewin did not answer phone calls or respond to questions via text or email. When The Handbasket called for Lewin on Monday at Munger’s LA office, a receptionist transferred the call to an extension that then disconnected. An email to Lewin’s work email Tuesday returned an auto-response stating Lewin “has departed” from the firm, but it is unclear when.

An associate who worked on a recent case with Lewin declined to say if Lewin still worked there when reached on Monday, adding he wasn’t allowed to talk to journalists on the phone. Calls to the firm’s human resources department were not immediately returned.

A profile for Lewin on the law firm’s website was deleted some time after November 2024. An archived version reads that Lewin “confidentially advised senior global policymakers” including former President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Second Lady Usha Vance worked for the law firm’s San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices as an associate for almost six years before resigning in July 2024.

Earlier this week, ProPublica reported that three members of the DOGE team are elite lawyers: Keenan Kmiec clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, James Burnham for Justice Neil Gorsuch — and Jacob Altik will be an upcoming Gorsuch clerk. Usha Vance famously clerked for Justice Roberts in 2017-18, and future Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2014 to 2015. 

When we reached Lewin’s mother by phone to ask if her son worked for Musk, she replied, “no comment.”

Jacqueline Sweet is an independent investigative journalist whose work has been published in The Guardian, POLITICO and The Intercept.