Topline
The Trump administration will not have to provide documents and testimony about billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency—at least for now—as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted the government’s request to temporarily halt movement in a case over whether DOGE has to be transparent about its actions.
Elon Musk in the Oval Office at the White House on May 21 in Washington, DC.
Key Facts
Roberts granted a request from the Trump administration to stop discovery in an ongoing lawsuit over whether DOGE has to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, which means its records could be made publicly available.
The Trump administration has argued the requests for information made by left-leaning watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which brought the case, are “extraordinarily overbroad and intrusive.”
The discovery process would have required the government to turn over two depositions, most notably a deposition by DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason, whom the Trump administration publicly named as the head of DOGE in an attempt to further distance Musk from the agency, after the billionaire’s leadership of DOGE started coming under scrutiny in court.
CREW is suing DOGE for failing to comply with its FOIA requests for information about DOGE’s role in the mass firings and sweeping cuts to federal agencies that took place after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, but the Trump administration argues DOGE is not a federal agency that has to respond to FOIA requests.
Roberts did not give any reasoning behind his decision to halt the lower court orders forcing the Trump administration to turn over DOGE records, but said the ruling will remain in effect until the Supreme Court rules otherwise.
That means DOGE will be able to continue withholding documents while the litigation keeps moving forward, though it’s still possible they could be forced to turn them over in the future.
Chief Critic
CREW argued in a Supreme Court filing Friday, prior to the court’s ruling, that there was “no basis” to grant the Trump administration’s request by blocking the records’ release, claiming the government “offers no coherent theory on how responding to modest discovery will cause it irreparable harm.” The organization slammed the Trump administration’s request to halt discovery as a delay tactic, which comes after the government has already failed to start the discovery process despite a lower court ordering them to do so 10 weeks ago. The government’s request further stymies “CREW’s and the public’s urgent need for information about DOGE’s ‘unprecedented’ operations as it continues to exercise its ‘substantial authority over vast swathes of the federal government’ with “unusual secrecy,’” CREW argued.
Further Reading
This story is breaking and will be updated.
