Judge ruling indicates DOGE is subject to open records rules

The latest lawsuit against DOGE foreshadowed greater transparency after a federal judge ruled against the organization’s “advisory” status.

Among the dozens of legal challenges that have been brought against efforts of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, a recent suit brought by a watchdog group has focused on record access. Per a Monday ruling by U.S. District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper, DOGE is expected to start turning over documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Obama-appointed Washington, D.C. judge opined in favor of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), stating, “Canceling any government contract would seem to require substantial authority–and canceling them on this scale certainly does.”

CREW sought documents from DOGE while contending the organization exercised authority independent of President Donald Trump and, despite the arguments of the administration, was not merely acting in an advisory role.

Based on the use of the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) as the existing government entity to platform DOGE, along with Trump’s executive orders that appeared to “endow USDS with substantial authority independent of the President,” Cooper asserted, “These statements and reports suggest that the President and USDS leadership view the department as wielding decision-making authority to make cuts across the federal government.”

The judge’s ruling brought up the use of the “encrypted messaging application Signal,” noting its “auto-delete functionality” amid claims that DOGE was exercising “unusual secrecy.”

Meanwhile, having recently added a payments page to the DOGE government website that broke down how the various federal agencies have been spending taxpayer money, Musk challenged the notion that the organization was anything but transparent.

Speaking with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, the tech entrepreneur who is determined to slash $2 trillion from federal spending by Independence Day 2026 said, “When people criticize what DOGE is doing, we say, ‘Well, which part, specifically?’ Because we put all of the actions of the DOGE team on the doge.gov and on the DOGE handle on X. So, we post the receipts.”

(Video Credit: Fox Business)

“So when we get criticism, we say, like, of what. Which line do you disagree with? Which cost-saving do you disagree with?” he added and suggested, “And then people usually can’t think of any.”

Cooper’s decision was hardly a blanket win for CREW as the watchdog group will have to wait for DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget to begin producing documents “on a rolling basis as soon as possible.”

“Unfortunately for CREW, it satisfies none of the factors entitling it to preliminary relief ordering production of its OMB requests by today’s date,” stated the judge as the government has already granted expedited processing of requests that have been aimed at OMB.

He gave the government until March 20, 2025, to file a status report with an estimate on the number of documents that would be responsive to CREW’s requests and set a filing deadline of March 27 for a joint status report with a proposed schedule on the production of records.

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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