Elon Musk’s government-busting initiative must fork over documents on its role in mass firings and other disruptions to federal programs, a federal judge in Washington has found in a first-of-its-kind rebuke against the operation’s lack of transparency.
In a ruling issued Monday night, Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected arguments from President Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or U.S. DOGE Service (USDS), that the effort is not a federal agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
The judge said that DOGE appears to be trying to have it both ways by claiming “substantial independent authority,” even as the Trump administration has set up the operation as an advisory effort within the Executive Office of the President, which is generally exempt from FOIA obligations.
“Indeed, the Court wonders whether this decision was strategic. In other briefing before courts in this district, USDS has argued that it qualifies as an agency … when it suits it,” wrote Cooper, an Obama appointee, in a footnote of his decision. “Thus ‘USDS becomes, on defendants’ view, a Goldilocks entity: not an agency when it is burdensome but an agency when it is convenient.’”
