WASHINGTON – A federal judge ordered President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has been recommending the dismantling of federal agencies and layoffs of thousands of federal workers, to disclose more about what it is doing under the Freedom of Information Act.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Monday that DOGE, which Trump has said is headed by billionaire adviser Elon Musk, must provide documents about “mass firings and dramatic disruptions to federal programs” that the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington fought for in a lawsuit.
The White House Office of Management and Budget initially agreed to provide documents CREW requested but later reneged. The U.S. DOGE Service refused by arguing it wasn’t an “agency” subject to FOIA, but rather a free-standing component of the office of the president.
Cooper ruled that DOGE “is likely covered by FOIA and that the public would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay in unearthing the records CREW seeks.” Cooper ordered DOGE to process the request “on an expedited timetable” and “begin producing documents on a rolling basis as soon as practicable.”
Elon Musk, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, shows his ‘DOGE’ T-shirt to the press as he arrives with Trump on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday.
Donald Sherman, CREW’s executive director and chief counsel, said the group was grateful for Cooper’s decision.
“Now more than ever, Americans deserve transparency in their government,” Sherman said in a statement. “Despite efforts and claims to the contrary, the government cannot hide the actions of the US DOGE Service. We look forward to the expedited processing of our requests and making all the DOGE documents public.”
Trump had announced the creation of DOGE in November, after he won the election to dismantle the bureaucracy, slash regulations and cut wasteful spending. Musk has aimed to cut as much as $2 trillion from the federal budget.
Trump’s executive order creating DOGE said teams of at least four staffers – a leader, an engineer, a human resources specialist and a lawyer – would be sent to targeted agencies.
DOGE’s recommendations have led to dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Tens of thousands of workers have been laid off across multiple departments.
Under a DOGE recommendation, federal workers who offered to resign could be paid through Sept. 30. About 75,000 workers – about 3% of the workforce – resigned, Cooper wrote.
Trump’s executive orders didn’t delegate any authority to DOGE to carry out its recommendations. But Cooper noted Musk took credit for actions, such as his Feb. 3 post that said he fed USAID “into the wood chipper.”
USAID placed 2,140 employees on administrative leave by Feb. 7, planned to place another approximately 2,014 employees on leave shortly thereafter and ultimately left 611 staffers for its statutory responsibilities, Cooper wrote.
Several other lawsuits sought to prevent DOGE staffers from gaining access to sensitive personnel and payments systems at multiple departments, a move Cooper said some viewed “as pernicious.”
CREW, a nonprofit that aims to educate the public about the government, filed its lawsuit for access to DOGE records. CREW seeks memos and directives governing DOGE’s operations; an organizational chart; ethics waivers and financial disclosures of its personnel; and communications with other agencies outside the president’s office regarding staffing levels.
Cooper ruled that the public would benefit from knowing more about DOGE and that an agency’s compliance with the statutory regime is presumably always in the public interest. Cooper set a March 20 deadline for DOGE to provide a schedule for when it will produce the documents.
“Moreover, the authority exercised by USDS across the federal government and the dramatic cuts it has apparently made with no congressional input appear to be unprecedented,” Cooper wrote. “All these factors together bolster the Court’s conclusion that a years-long delay in processing the USDS Request would cause irreparable harm.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge orders DOGE to provide documents under FOIA about federal cuts
