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).
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ordered Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to turn over documents and answer a series of questions regarding “DOGE’s and Musk’s role and authority” within the Trump administration.
In a 14-page order, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan directed Musk and DOGE to respond to questions regarding the elimination and reduction of federal agencies, firings of federal employees, cancellations of federal contracts, and accessing and making changes to federal agencies. She also instructed the organization to “identify DOGE personnel and the parameters of DOGE’s and Musk’s authority”
The order stemmed from a lawsuit filed last month by a coalition of 14 Democratic states alleging that President Donald Trump’s grant of sweeping power to Musk and DOGE violated the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause by delegating “virtually unchecked authority” to the tech billionaire without proper legal authority from Congress or “meaningful supervision of his activities.”
The court afforded the defendants 21 days to file their responses instead of the typical seven days to “avoid any unnecessary intrusion into the operation of the Office of the President.” Chutkan also rejected a request for depositions, but noted that she would revisit that request if the defendants fail to adequately respond to the written discovery.
The court rejected DOGE’s “broad privilege assertions,” reasoning that the plaintiffs’ discovery requests were “crafted specifically to avoid infringing on governmental privileges,” particularly by not seeking information from Trump or requesting electronic communications.
The newly formed DOGE has been heavily criticized for the organization’s opaque nature. DOGE has refused to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and attempted to keep the names of its employees from being publicly released as they gut the federal workforce.
Despite the deluge of lawsuits involving the organization, Chutkan’s order marks the first time a court has ordered Musk to produce documents or respond to interrogatory questions. The court noted that despite Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt repeatedly indicating that Musk was the head of DOGE, the defendants insisted in court documents that he is not in charge.
“As to Musk, he is subject to two document requests and two interrogatories,” Chutkan wrote. “Factoring the narrow time frame, Defendants’ claim that Musk does not lead DOGE, and the electronic communications exemption, those four requests are unlikely to unduly burden the Executive Branch. And the court will not extend the heightened consideration afforded to ‘senior members of the Executive Branch’ to DOGE, an office that other courts have concluded ‘wields … substantial authority independent of the President.’”
Despite its title, DOGE is not an actual federal government department. Rather, it is a “temporary organization” formed by Trump via executive order tasked with “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity” by reducing the number of federal workers and cutting spending. The organization is established under the Executive Office of the President and its acting administrator, Amy Gleason, reports to the White House chief of staff.
Chutkan last month declined the plaintiffs’ request to issue a temporary restraining order barring DOGE from firing additional employees and accessing data at several agencies in the executive branch. However, she expressed serious concerns that Musk was an “unelected individual” who appeared to be wielding “unchecked authority” within the government.
She wrote (citations omitted):
That said, Plaintiffs raise a colorable Appointments Clause claim with serious implications. Musk has not been nominated by the President nor confirmed by the U.S. Senate, as constitutionally required for officers who exercise “significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States.” Bypassing this “significant structural safeguard[] of the constitutional scheme,” Musk has rapidly taken steps to fundamentally reshape the Executive Branch. Even Defendants concede there is no apparent “source of legal authority granting [DOGE] the power” to take some of the actions challenged here. Accepting Plaintiffs’ allegations as true, Defendants’ actions are thus precisely the “Executive abuses” that the Appointments Clause seeks to prevent
A different federal judge on Monday ordered DOGE to release some records and documents in response to a FOIA request from a government ethics watchdog group, despite the organization’s contention that it was exempt from such requests.
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