US Supreme Court keeps DOGE records blocked in watchdog group's challenge

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17 hours ago

By Andrew Chung
(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court extended on Friday its block on judicial orders requiring the Department of Government Efficiency to turn over records to a government watchdog group that sought details on the entity established by President Donald Trump and previously spearheaded by his billionaire former adviser Elon Musk.
The court put on hold Washington-based U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper's orders for DOGE to respond to requests by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington for information about its operations. The judge concluded that DOGE likely is a government agency covered by the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The brief, unsigned order said that portions of one of the judge's decisions "are not appropriately tailored" and that "separation of powers concerns counsel judicial deference and restraint in the context of discovery regarding internal Executive Branch communications." The court sent the case back to a lower appeals court to narrow the judge's directives.
The court's three liberal justices - Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson - dissented from Friday's decision.
In a separate case, the Supreme Court on Friday permitted DOGE broad access to personal information on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out.
DOGE has played a central role in Trump's efforts to downsize and reshape the U.S. government including by slashing the federal workforce and dismantling certain agencies. The watchdog group, called CREW, said its intention was to shed light on what it called DOGE's secretive structure and operations.
Musk formally ended his government work on May 30 and his once-close relationship with Trump has since unraveled publicly, a split that followed Musk's recent attacks on the president's sweeping tax and spending bill and played out dramatically on social media on Thursday.
CREW sued to obtain an array of records from DOGE through the FOIA statute, a law that allows the public to seek access to records produced by government agencies. It sought information on DOGE's activities over its role in the mass firings and cuts to federal programs pursued since the Republican president returned to office in January.
"While we're obviously disappointed that the Supreme Court chose to revise aspects of our discovery requests, we're pleased that the court allowed discovery to proceed," said CREW spokesperson Jordan Libowitz after Friday's decision.
Prior to Friday's order, Chief Justice John Roberts had imposed a temporary pause on Cooper's orders to give the court more time to consider the dispute.
The Trump administration contends that DOGE is an advisory entity and not subject to FOIA. In response, CREW sought information to determine whether DOGE is subject to FOIA because it wields the kind of authority of an agency independent of the president.
Cooper ruled in April that DOGE must turn over some records sought by CREW and that the group was entitled to question DOGE official Amy Gleason at a deposition. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined on May 14 to put Cooper's order on hold.
The administration urged the Supreme Court to act, saying that the judge's orders intruded on the powers of the executive branch and compromised the ability of a wide array of advisers to provide candid and confidential advice to the president.
CREW told the justices that siding with the administration in the dispute would give the president "free reign" to create new entities that would "functionally wield substantial independent authority but are exempt from critical transparency laws."
In one of his decisions, Cooper said DOGE's operations have been marked by "unusual secrecy." In another, the judge said that the language of Trump's executive orders concerning DOGE suggests that it is "exercising substantial independent authority."