President-elect Donald Trump listens to Elon Musk as he arrives to watch SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship lift off for a test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, Nov. 19, 2024 (Brandon Bell/Pool via AP, File).
While standing next to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office earlier this month, billionaire Elon Musk, the de facto head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), claimed that his team had been “maximally transparent” as the Trump administration seeks to gut the federal workforce. But in recent court filings, the government said it will not provide DOGE records to the public under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, claiming that the organization is exempt from the law.
Justice Department attorneys on Thursday filed court documents in connection with a FOIA lawsuit in Washington, D.C., wherein they state that Trump’s executive order redesignated the U.S. Digital Service as the U.S. DOGE Service, removing the organization from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to make it a “free-standing component of the Executive Office of the President.”
As such, the government claimed that DOGE is “not subject to FOIA.”
The Government’s claim came in response to a complaint filed last week by government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). In its lawsuit, CREW accused DOGE of unlawfully refusing to comply with its FOIA requests for records associated with the government group’s actions and ignored repeated demands for DOGE to preserve its records under the Federal Records Act.
CREW requested expedited records and documents related to communications between Office of Management and Budget (OMB) staffers and individuals who were affiliated with DOGE prior to Trump’s inauguration, changes to the operations of the U.S. Digital Service, organizational charts and financial disclosures, and DOGE’s communications with federal agencies, which DOGE and the other plaintiffs have so far failed to turn over.
The government’s filing primarily addressed its opposition to CREW requesting the production of responsive documents and records by the specific deadline of March 10. It is only in a footnote on page nine of the government opposition memo where DOGE’s exemption from FOIA is mentioned. The footnote purports to explain that CREW’s FOIA request was misdirected to OMB.
“After January 20, 2025, [U.S. DOGE Service] moved out of OMB and became a free-standing component of EOP that reports to the White House Chief of Staff,” the footnote states. “As a result, [U.S. DOGE Service] is not subject to FOIA.”
In a statement to Government Executive, a White House official said that DOGE “advises and assists the President on making government more efficient.”
“As an advise-and-assist component, [DOGE] falls under the Presidential Records Act,” the official said. If the government’s position is countenanced by the courts, it means that DOGE records could be kept from the public for up to 12 years after the end of Trump’s term in office.
The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), another watchdog group, filed a civil action against Trump and DOGE last week over the claim that DOGE records are covered by the Presidential Records Act.
“The public must have insight into the operations of the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk and the DOGE team have been granted sweeping access to the federal agencies, and the records of their activities should be well preserved and made available to the public,” POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit. “The Trump administration has inappropriately tried to hide DOGE’s actions from the public by declaring it is subject to the Presidential Records Act, and the courts must intervene.”
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
