US judge says Musk’s Doge must release records on operations run in ‘secrecy’
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The ruling marked an early victory for advocates seeking to force Doge to become more transparent about its role in the mass firings.
PHOTO: AFP
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WASHINGTON - A federal judge on March 10 ordered the government-downsizing team created by US President Donald Trump and spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk to make public records concerning its operations, which he said had been run in “unusual secrecy”.
US District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) in finding that the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was likely an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The ruling, the first of its kind, marked an early victory for advocates seeking to force Doge to become more transparent
The Trump administration had argued that Doge as an arm of the Executive Office of the President was not subject to FOIA, a law that allows the public to seek access to records produced by government agencies that they had not previously disclosed.
But Judge Cooper, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, said that Doge was exercising “substantial independent authority” much greater than the other components of that office that are usually exempt from FOIA’s requirements.
He said it “appears to have the power not just to evaluate federal programmes, but to drastically reshape and even eliminate them wholesale”, a fact that the judge said the agency declined to refute.
He said its “operations thus far have been marked by unusual secrecy”, citing reports about Doge’s use of an outside server, its employees’ refusal to identify themselves to career officials and their use of the encrypted app Signal to communicate.
The White House and Crew, the watchdog group, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Washington-based Crew launched the lawsuit on Feb 20
Crew had asked Judge Cooper to order the records released by March 10, arguing that the public and Congress needed the information during the debate over government funding legislation that must pass by March 14 to avert a partial government shutdown.
The judge declined to set a March 14 deadline to produce the records.
But he ordered the records produced on an expedited basis, saying voters and Congress deserve timely information on Doge given the “unprecedented” authority it was exercising to reshape the government. REUTERS
