Biden Appointed Judge Delivers Crushing Setback to Letitia James in Trump Legal Clash

New York Attorney General Letitia James suffered a major courtroom setback Wednesday when a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit she led against President Donald Trump over access to sensitive Treasury systems by employees affiliated with DOGE.

Biden appointed U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas concluded that the central dispute no longer presented an active issue for the court to resolve.

James had spearheaded the case alongside 18 other states.

The legal fight arose from Trump’s January 2025 executive order establishing DOGE.

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That order instructed executive agencies to form DOGE teams and set July 4, 2026, as the termination date for the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization.

The following month, James and the other states sued after the Treasury Department allowed employees affiliated with DOGE to access systems operated by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

Those systems process federal payments and contain sensitive financial information.

Vargas ruled that the “plaintiffs’ claims related to access by DOGE-affiliated employees to sensitive Treasury information are dismissed as moot,” according to the order issued Wednesday.

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The ruling brought James’ latest legal offensive against the Trump administration to an abrupt halt.

Letitia James’ latest Trump legal battle has ended in federal court.

Biden-appointed Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed claims over DOGE-linked access to sensitive Treasury systems as moot after the Treasury DOGE team was disbanded.

James led New York and 18 other states in… pic.twitter.com/ygX18cAIc5

— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) September 24, 2026

The judge said the Treasury DOGE team had been disbanded and that no DOGE employees remained at the Treasury Department.

With those employees gone, Vargas found there was no continuing access practice for the court to block.

Vargas also dismissed the states’ separate claims concerning an automated system used to review payments.

She found that the states had not alleged the process froze or canceled any specific federal payment owed to them.

James and the coalition had argued that the Trump administration unlawfully opened sensitive Treasury systems to DOGE personnel.

They claimed the access placed state financial information and federal payments at risk while exceeding the administration’s legal authority.

The litigation had previously produced temporary restrictions on the administration.

In February 2025, Vargas granted the states a preliminary injunction that barred the Treasury DOGE team from the payment systems covered by the case.

Over the following months, Vargas modified that order to allow access for personnel who satisfied specified procedures.

Those requirements involved vetting, training, hiring, reporting and mitigation measures.

Trump’s executive order called for each department to assemble its own DOGE team to identify fraud, waste and abuse before the July 4 termination date.

The Treasury team’s eventual disbandment proved decisive in Vargas’ determination that the access claims were moot.

The dismissal marks another chapter in the long running legal conflict between James and Trump.

James has repeatedly criticized the president and has pursued legal action involving both Trump and the Trump Organization.

In 2022, James filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and the Trump Organization after campaigning on investigating his business practices.

That case initially produced more than $450 million in penalties against Trump.

An appeals court later upheld Trump’s liability in that civil fraud case while voiding the financial penalty.

The latest Treasury case, however, ended at the district court level after Vargas found the challenged access arrangement was no longer in place.

The White House and the office of the New York attorney general were contacted for comment.

For James, the result is a clear setback in another high profile clash with Trump.

The judge she faced was appointed by Biden, yet the ruling still left her coalition without the court ordered relief it sought against the administration’s DOGE related Treasury access.

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