Elon Musk arrives for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday appeared skeptical of the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Trump administration that would bar Elon Musk and DOGE from accessing federal agency data and firing federal employees.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Sue Chutkan repeatedly questioned whether the plaintiffs had “concrete” evidence of imminent harm necessary for the “extraordinary” relief they sought, indicating she was not inclined to grant the request. At one point in the hourlong hearing, Chutkan referred to the plaintiffs’ request as an apparent “prophylactic TRO,” which she said is “not allowed.”
However, the hearing did not seem to go particularly well for the Justice Department either, as Chutkan seemed incredulous when the DOJ’s attorney claimed that Musk had “no formal or actual authority to make any government decisions.”
The case stems from a lawsuit filed last week by a coalition of 14 states claiming that President Donald Trump’s grant of sweeping power to Musk and his associates at 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 suit, which names as defendants Trump, Musk, and DOGE, further asserts that the executive branch lacks the authority to unilaterally create or dismantle a federal agency.
“As a result, he has transformed a minor position that was formerly responsible for managing government websites into a designated agent of chaos without limitation and in violation of the separation of powers,” the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint. “Framers of the Constitution crafted the Appointments Clause to protect against such tyranny in our system of government. The Appointments Clause was designed to buttress the separation of powers in two ways: first by requiring that Congress create an office before the President can fill it, and second by requiring that the Senate confirm a nominee to an office created by law.”
But the plaintiffs’ attorney, Anjana Samant, was met with reluctance when pressed to show how the plaintiff states were going to suffer imminent harm. The states’ attorney began citing to news report about DOGE’s activities before she was abruptly cut off by Chutkan.
