Blow the whistle on DOGE. Then his brakes were cut off

On April 14, In 2025, Dan Perolis, an IT employee with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), filed a lawsuit Congressional Whistleblower Complaint With an unusual and urgent lawsuit: the named Government Efficiency Department (DOGE) appears to have hacked the agency’s data and appears to be kicking it out of the NLRB entirely. Additionally, Peroulis claimed that just minutes after DOGE members accessed the agency’s data, there appeared to be attempts to log in from an IP address in Russia.

At the time, DOGE teams were run by a billionaire Elon MuskHe was Sweeping the governmentThe firing of federal employees and access to sensitive data and technical systems without oversight and little transparency.

The next day, Berulis went public in NPR article With his name and his claims. In it, he claimed that in the lead-up to his exposure to Congress, a threatening note had been taped to his door, including photos of him walking his dog that appeared to have been taken by a drone. Peroules was already afraid that speaking out would make him a target.

In a new defamation lawsuit filed by Perulis in a court in the capital on April 17 and Announce This week, Birolis claims that Musk himself made him the target of more violence by falsely stating that the whistleblower Birolis’ claim against the DOGE was false. The complaint was initially filed under seal because Perulis maintains a security clearance that requires pre-publication review for anything related to his work with the government.

Five days after the NPR story was published, on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, Peroulis got into his car to drive to Maryland for a last-minute visit to his uncle, choosing to take local roads instead of the nearby main highway. Within about five minutes of leaving his home, Peroulis realized something was wrong. As he approached the stop sign at the intersection, his car did not slow down. He ran off the road to the sign. When he examined his car, he found something that horrified him: the brake lines were cut.

Unbeknownst to Peroulis at the time, the night before, on April 19, at 8:06 p.m., Musk had Re-share Post Musk shared Novel’s post, writing: “Intentionally making a false claim to a whistleblower is a serious crime.” The story was originally shared by @amuse, an account that regularly posts misleading claims and disinformation. Followed by influential people Like Musk and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. @amuse’s post included Berulis’ name and photo.

According to a police report seen by WIRED, when a Prince William County police officer arrived at the scene, Birolis’ attorney for Whistleblower Aid, Andrew Bakaj, who helped Birolis file his complaint in Congress about DOGE, was also at the scene.

Peroulis, who discovered Musk’s tweet after the incident, thought about the threatening note posted on his front door earlier that month.

According to the lawsuit, “Musk’s readers inferred the implication” that Peroulis had committed a serious crime, “as reflected in responses requesting prosecution, imprisonment, harm, or arrest,” and that this placed him at “an increased risk of physical harm.” In responses to the post, which remains online, many users called for Peroulis to be prosecuted. one User wrote“Snitches Get Stitches.”

“The connection was clear to me, with the timing,” he says. Peroules also began to worry about how much who was threatening him knew where he lived.