28 May 2025

Judge Rules Case Alleging Illegal Actions by DOGE Can Proceed

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Federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that a lawsuit accusing Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” of various illegal actions can proceed.

Attorneys General for 14 states filed the lawsuit, in which they asked the court to temporarily prohibit DOGE from accessing federal data systems and firing federal workers. On 18 February 2025 Chutkan denied the request. Despite legitimate questions about Musk’s position, she did not see adequate justification for a temporary restraining order.

In her decision to allow the case to proceed, Chutkan agreed to dismiss Donald Trump as a defendant but not the claims against Musk and DOGE.

The lawsuit asserts that actions taken by Musk and DOGE personnel who answer to him are unconstitutional because Musk has not been appointed with Senate confirmation and DOGE has not been authorized by Congress. Musk and DOGE have accessed sensitive government data systems, canceled government contracts and fired thousands of federal workers without legal authority to do so.

In a separate case, government lawyers told the Supreme Court that Elon Musk and DOGE are only advisors to Donald Trump and are not part of the federal government. The Supreme Court accepted that and temporarily paused Freedom of Information Act requests about DOGE activities, which a government agency must answer but an advisory panel might not. However, the website for DOGE claims it is a government agency, not an advisory panel.

The government’s lawyers told Chutkan that firings of workers are being done by agency leaders, Musk is only an advisor and Amy Gleason is the administrator in charge of leading DOGE.

Chutkan did not believe the government’s lawyers.  She found that:

  • Musk appears to “exercise significant authority” across the executive branch.
  • DOGE accessed “private and proprietary information” without authorization.
  • The state Attorneys General showed enough evidence of real harm to proceed.

Chutkan wrote, “The Constitution does not permit the Executive to commandeer the entire appointments power by unilaterally creating a federal agency pursuant to Executive Order and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an ‘advisor’ in name only. This is precisely what Plaintiffs claim the Executive has done.”

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