An outside group sued to obtain records in line with the Freedom of Information Act.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) must hand over records concerning its operations, which have been conducted with “unusual secrecy,” a federal judge said on March 10.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper rejected arguments from the government asserting that DOGE, which has been led in part by special adviser Elon Musk, is not an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
He ordered DOGE to hand over records sought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Cooper ruled that DOGE is likely covered by FOIA, which enables people and groups to request records on many government agencies, and that the public “would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay in unearthing the records CREW seeks.”
Trump announced that he would create DOGE after winning the 2024 election. After taking office in January, Trump issued an executive order renaming the United States Digital Service as the United States DOGE Service (USDS). The order authorizes DOGE “to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
CREW filed a FOIA request in late 2024 for records about communications between the Office of Management and Budget and officials affiliated with DOGE. CREW in January submitted other requests for records related to DOGE, including organizational charts.
The Office of Management and Budget told the group that it would process the requests in an expedited fashion, but that it could not guarantee a completion date because it has a significant backlog of FOIA requests. It also referred one of the requests to DOGE.
CREW sued, asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel production of the records on DOGE and to force the agencies to produce them quickly. In its motion for a preliminary injunction, CREW stated that DOGE is subject to FOIA because it is a federal agency.
Opposing the motion, government lawyers said DOGE is not subject to FOIA because it is part of the Executive Office of the President, but that they would outline their arguments later in the case.
“This is a question for the merits, however, once Defendants have had an opportunity to answer the complaint in the ordinary course,” they wrote. “It should not be decided in the context of a preliminary-injunction motion seeking accelerated processing.”
Court precedent dictates that entities within the Executive Office of the President are only subject to FOIA if they have “wielded substantial authority independently of the President.”
Cooper ruled that DOGE has, pointing to Trump’s order enabling DOGE to implement his agenda.
“That order appears to give USDS the authority to implement the DOGE Agenda, not just to advise the President in doing so,” Cooper wrote.
Other statements from Trump and Musk indicate that DOGE “is in fact exercising substantial independent authority,” the judge noted later, pointing to how Trump at one point wrote that DOGE would have the power “to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
Various agencies have also thanked DOGE for its help in cutting their workforces and other personnel matters.
“[DOGE] reportedly is leading the charge on these actions, not merely advising others to carry them out,” Cooper said. “From these reports, the Court can conclude that USDS likely has at least some independent authority to identify and terminate federal employees, federal programs, and federal contracts.
“Doing any of those three things would appear to require substantial independent authority; to do all three surely does.”
Cooper declined CREW’s request to force the Office of Management and Budget and DOGE to produce the requested records by March 10, but did enter an order stating that the agencies must move forward with processing the requests.
He directed the agencies to provide an estimate of the responsive record volume by March 20. He also ordered the parties to meet and confer regarding a proposed timeline and file a joint status report by March 27.