The conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court handed two big victories on Friday to the Department of Government Efficiency on access to sensitive information and on answering Freedom of Information requests.
Critics on the left have mounted numerous legal challenges in an attempt to shut down the efforts of DOGE, which had been previously led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
‘A district court has issued sweeping injunctive relief without legal authority to do so, in ways that inflict ongoing, irreparable harm on urgent federal priorities and stymie the Executive Branch’s functions.’
The court found 6-3 that DOGE can have access to records at the Social Security Administration, with Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson saying they would have denied the request.
The court also ruled 6-3 to pause a lower court order making DOGE responsible for answering FOIA requests. However, the case was sent back to the lower court with a narrower discovery order.
In April, an Obama-appointed judge blocked access to SSA records from DOGE.
“This intrusion into the personal affairs of millions of Americans — absent an adequate explanation for the need to do so — is not in the public interest,” said U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander.
Trump’s solicitor general John Sauer argued against the order on the basis that it lacked judicial authority.
“A district court has issued sweeping injunctive relief without legal authority to do so, in ways that inflict ongoing, irreparable harm on urgent federal priorities and stymie the Executive Branch’s functions,” he said.
Sauer added that the government “cannot eliminate waste and fraud if district courts bar the very agency personnel with expertise and the designated mission of curtailing such waste and fraud from performing their jobs.”
A coalition of unions and retiree groups first filed the lawsuit in that case.
RELATED: Jasmine Crockett calls DOGE a ‘scam’ and ‘cover-up’ to help Elon Musk profit
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The other case was in answer to a lawsuit from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who charged that the “secretive operations” of DOGE should be subject to public review.
Sauer had argued that DOGE was not technically a government agency but was instead a “presidential advisory body” housed within the Executive Office of the President.
“At issue here is a far narrower antecedent question: whether the court of appeals clearly and indisputably erred in refusing to disturb a district court order allowing limited discovery to ascertain DOGE’s agency status,” said an attorney for CREW.
The Supreme Court found in an unsigned order that the “separation of powers concerns counsel judicial deference and restraint” when ordering the executive to turn over information.
Musk has since left DOGE and had a falling-out with the president.
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