New Delhi, June 6 -- The plan did not begin with a court order, a statute, or a formal rulemaking. It began with a phone call. On the other end was a Department of Government Efficiency official who, by Jeremiah Schofield's account, proposed something that stopped the 25-year Social Security veteran cold: enter the names of 2.7 million living people into a federal death registry and watch the consequences cascade.

no wages, no bank account, no insurance, no way to rent an apartment or prove you exist. The DOGE official Schofield described in his Senate disclosure, identified by other reporting as Jon Koval, said that was precisely the point.

The scheme, reported Friday by The Washington Post after the outlet reviewed a 49-page whistlebl...