The Trump administration wants to block discovery documents detailing the Department of Government Efficiency’s mass firings and contract cancellations—led by billionaire Elon Musk—from a watchdog group. The Supreme Court on Tuesday announced it will allow it to explain why.
Last year, the D.C. District Court sided with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, watchdog in its lawsuit against DOGE, which argued that the agency is subject to the Freedom of Information Act but was ignoring public records requests. After the court allowed CREW’s lawsuit to move forward, and gave the watchdog group a sworn deposition from acting DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason, the Trump administration stepped in to appeal the decision.
The conservative-majority Supreme Court has interfered in the case before, blocking a CREW discovery request last summer. Now the high court will hear the Trump administration’s argument that DOGE was a presidential advisory organization and not a federal agency—making it exempt from public records requests.
All three liberal justices dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Trump’s case.
It’s perplexing that DOGE, which forced out tens of thousands of federal workers, thinks its records and dealings should be exempt from public scrutiny.
“The most transparent administration [in] history?” the Ways and Means Committee Democrats account posted on Tuesday.
CREW plans to continue making its case. “Undisputed facts in the public record—including the president’s statements—confirmed that [DOGE] was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” a spokesperson told the Associated Press.