NEW: Federal Judge OKs DOGE Access at Treasury

Held: Bat-guano crazy speculation does not a case for judicial intervention make.

A group of plaintiffs had attempted to block the US DOGE Service from access at Treasury on that very basis. They had claimed that the administration had the intent to expose personal information under cover of their mission to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. And if the plaintiffs had any evidence of such, they might have prevailed.

Instead, the federal judge dismissed the lawsuit and told them to come back when evidence of wrongdoing actually emerged:

In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., rejected a request by a retirees’ group and two labor unions to block DOGE from accessing the payment system, which processes tax refunds, Social Security payments, Medicare spending and federal salaries.

The plaintiffs bringing the case said an injunction was necessary to protect the private data of average Americans. The judge said those privacy concerns are “understandable,” but that the plaintiffs failed to show that private data on Treasury Department payment systems was being compromised. 

“If Plaintiffs could show that Defendants imminently planned to make their private information public or to share that information with individuals outside the federal government with no obligation to maintain its confidentiality, the Court would not hesitate to find a likelihood of irreparable harm,” the judge wrote. “But on the present record, Plaintiffs have not shown that Defendants have such a plan.”

As I noted above, it’s not sufficient to claim what might happen. It’s not even sufficient to merely assert that harm is happening. Unless plaintiffs can provide a preponderance of evidence for intent or actual damage, courts can’t intervene in the legitimate exercise of executive authority. And the attempt to find and eliminate waste and fraud in the executive branch is not just within executive authority, it’s a fiduciary duty of the chief executive, under whose authority Treasury and all other executive branch agencies operate.

And the US DOGE Service has all the legal authority it needs to carry out this mission. Democrats created it during the Obama administration to fix their disastrous ObamaCare portal and then created jurisdiction for the US Digital Service across the entire executive branch to access systems and data for modernization. Trump renamed it but kept the same jurisdiction in place, and gave it a mission to track all spending for the aforementioned waste, fraud, and abuse — only this time aimed at spending priorities and the “swamp.”

However, this ruling conflicts with another at the district-court level. Last month, a federal judge in Manhattan blocked DOGE from accessing the Treasury payment system based on the same kind of bat-guano-cracy speculation about potential exposure of confidential data. Judge Jeannette Vargas will hold a hearing later this month, when she might relent and reverse if DOGE takes certain steps to safeguard the data:

Vargas indicated she may lift her injunction if certain conditions are met by the Trump administration. She ordered the Treasury Department to submit a report by March 24 that details whether DOGE employees have been adequately vetted and trained to access the financial systems. The report must also detail “the mitigation procedures that have been developed to minimize any threats resulting from increased access” by DOGE, the judge said.

This is still a hysterical over-reaction. All federal employees have to refrain from exposing confidential data. No one blocked the Biden administration from hiring 87,000 people off the street into the IRS for the express purpose of squeezing more money out of taxpayers on the basis that it might result in the exposure of confidential material. And those new employees were expected to have direct access to confidential taxpayer information, too. 

Today’s ruling is a step in the right direction. Assuming that the administration makes a supportable showing to Vargas in two weeks, the entire process should begin to move forward soon. But if Vargas doesn’t lift the order, then get ready for fast appeals up the chain to settle the issue of executive authority firmly and decisively.