Trump admin asks Supreme Court to keep DOGE records secret

By Josh Gerstein, Kyle Cheney | 05/21/2025 04:05 PM EDT

The appeal to the high court comes in a FOIA lawsuit filed by a watchdog group.

Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk speaks in the Oval Office at the White House.

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to block a court-ordered inquiry into the authority of the Department of Government Efficiency project Elon Musk headed at the request of President Donald Trump. Alex Brandon/AP

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to block an effort to open the inner workings of the secretive DOGE cost-cutting effort to public scrutiny.

The Justice Department filed an emergency appeal Wednesday urging the high court to put a hold on a judge’s orders giving a watchdog group access to documents detailing firings, grant terminations and other actions proposed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which was overseen by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Solicitor General John Sauer is also asking the Supreme Court to block a deposition of the obscure official the Trump administration has identified as the leader of the budget-cutting drive: DOGE administrator Amy Gleason.

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The appeal is the latest in more than a dozen expedited requests the administration has brought to the Supreme Court in the first four months of President Donald Trump’s second term. The myriad requests have sought the justices’ quick intervention to block preliminary lower-court rulings on everything from Trump’s immigration agenda to his layoff plans for federal workers. One other emergency appeal pending before the justices also relates to DOGE: a bid by the administration to give DOGE access to sensitive Social Security data.

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