Federal judge hands Musk’s DOGE a win on data access at 3 agencies
Photo: Allison Robbert/Pool/Reuters/File
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency can continue to access sensitive records from at least three federal agencies after a federal judge in Washington denied a request to block Musk's budget-slashing team from the Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
U.S. District Judge John Bates, in a late-night ruling, denied a request made by a group of unions and nonprofits to issue a temporary order blocking DOGE from the sensitive records maintained by the three agencies.
Elon Musk has repeatedly targeted Bates over the last week on X – including calling for the judge's impeachment – after Bates issued a decision in another case ordering multiple agencies to restore public health data after the Trump administration suddenly removed it. "There needs to be an immediate wave of judicial impeachments, not just one," Musk wrote on Wednesday in response to a post about the judge.
The tech billionaire celebrated Friday's ruling in a post on X.
The judge's decision came down to the question of whether DOGE has the authority to "detail" its people to individual parts of the federal government where – as employees of that department or agency – the individuals associated with DOGE could legally access the sensitive records. To have that authority, DOGE would have to be considered an "agency" in the eyes of the law, Bates wrote.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that DOGE is not an agency -- because it was created via an executive order -- and therefore is not entitled to detail its employees to parts of the federal government.
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