The controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has cleared an initial hurdle, with a federal judge’s decision to allow continued access to federal data — at least for the time being.
The decision came in response to a state attorneys general lawsuit seeking to block DOGE from further access to federal data. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said that while some aspects of Elon Musk and DOGE’s legal level of access remain in doubt, a restraining order cannot be issued unless specific and immediate harms can be demonstrated.
DOGE access to federal data continues in absence of suit specifying “immediate harm”
The suit filed by 14 state attorneys general in early February is the most potent of the legal challenges to emerge against DOGE as of yet, but is predicated more on challenging the constitutional validity of the powers Musk has been granted as a “special government employee.” The suit argues that this level of access to federal data requires a Senate confirmation process and has focused more on forcing Musk and DOGE to document how such data may have been unlawfully accessed and used and to bar the team from putting further restrictions on government spending.
The attorneys general center the suit on concerns brought by their constituents, with the 14 states involved all considered solid Democrat strongholds in national elections save for Nevada (which has shown a blue lean in recent years but demonstrated its continuing “swing state” status by going for Trump in the 2024 election). The suit also argues that since Republicans control both the House and Senate, there is little reason Trump should not embrace a Congressional process in this political moment.
But though critics tend to frame DOGE’s slash-and-burn campaign as Musk’s personal work and subject to his whims, the legal structure of the agency appears to be much more complicated. Trump has said that Musk is not directing the agency’s day-to-day actions, and that it makes recommendations that go either to his office or agency heads for action. Thus the legal focus on DOGE’s right to access federal data, which the agency frames as a far-reaching audit to identify waste, fraud and abuse that is expected to generate at least $1 trillion in savings in the government budget.
The judge, an Obama nominee who previously was at the head of a criminal election interference case against Trump that was ultimately dismissed, found that a standard of “grave legal harm” would have to be met to issue a restraining order and that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated specific enough immediate harms to meet that standard. Concerns about DOGE’s access to federal data have to a great deal been speculative thus far, such as how the team might handle American taxpayer information accessed via the Treasury Department.
Federal data suits target specific agencies
The legal action has also demonstrated the difficulty in directly taking on DOGE as an entity in court. The attorneys general lawsuit would only bar DOGE from accessing federal data and terminating employees belonging to the Office of Personnel Management and the departments of Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation and Commerce. The Treasury department is a separate legal issue that resulted in a temporary block for DOGE last week, one seemingly resolved by restricting Musk’s agency to only viewing anonymized taxpayer information.
The Trump Justice Department has countered these suits by arguing that Musk and DOGE have influence, but not actual authority. Therefore Musk is not actually wielding the power of the US government, merely making recommendations as an advisor to the executive branch and to heads of agencies capable of making budget and personnel decisions on their own.
In another suit specific to the Department of Education, a request by students to have DOGE access blocked was denied by a Washington federal district court judge last week. In a similar ruling, the judge determined that the students needed specific examples of their personal data being inappropriately used by the agency rather than general conjecture about what might be done with it. And a third suit involving the Department of Labor, heard by a federal judge in the District of Columbia, also ended with a determination that the labor union plaintiffs must show actual injury before DOGE can be barred from the agency’s federal data.
DOGE has at least one more lawsuit waiting in the wings, a District of Maryland filing by a group of 26 federal government workers seeking a preliminary injunction for reputational and emotional damage caused by the agency’s cost-cutting campaign. The Musk team estimates that it has cut about $55 billion in its first month of operation, with its sights now turning to the IRS and NASA as well as the gold supply at Fort Knox. Musk recently floated the idea of returning some portion of DOGE’s savings as a dividend payment to US taxpayers, a concept that Trump seemed to approve of.
