WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday took up a Trump administration’s bid to prevent a watchdog group from seeking information about the Department of Government Efficiency, which played a key role in firing thousands of federal workers and canceling government funding.
The court agreed to hear a Justice Department appeal that sought to prevent Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington from obtaining records under the Freedom of Information Act. A ruling is due by the end of June.
The Trump administration has argued that DOGE, spearheaded by former administration adviser Elon Musk, was not subject to what are known as FOIA requests.
DOGE, which played a key role in dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, was a controversial feature of Trump’s early months in office, triggering various lawsuits. Its operations have since dwindled.
The case had already reached the Supreme Court once at an earlier stage of the litigation. Then, in a provisional decision, the court blocked parts of a lower court ruling that required thousands of pages of information to be handed over.
It also meant that plaintiffs’ lawyers could not depose Amy Gleason, the DOGE administrator.
Litigation has since continued. As a result of the Supreme Court’s earlier intervention, the plaintiffs narrowed their requests for information, but the government still objected. After losing in lower courts, Solicitor General D. John Sauer again asked the justices to weigh in.
The information requests remained on hold while the case plays out.
The plaintiffs say the information they still want is about DOGE guidance to its workers on the canceling of contracts and firing of government workers. None of those requests concern any communications with the White House that may be off-limits under FOIA, they say.
A key question lurking in the case is whether DOGE is technically a government agency and therefore subject to FOIA, which allows members of the public to seek internal documents.
The Trump administration says that, despite its name, DOGE is merely a presidential advisory body that is not subject to public records requests under FOIA.
Further complicating matters, when DOGE was set up, it effectively took the place of a previous government entity called the U.S. Digital Service. The Trump administration now refers to the body as the U.S. DOGE Service, or USDS.
Soon after Trump took office in January 2025, CREW filed a FOIA request seeking information about DOGE. The group later filed suit.
In March 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington ruled DOGE is “likely” covered by FOIA, saying that “the public would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay in unearthing the records CREW seeks.”
The documents in question all relate back to the question of whether DOGE is a government agency.