The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to take up a major case that will decide whether a leftist nonprofit can acquire records from President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The high court revealed in its newest order list that it has added U.S. DOGE Service v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to its 2026 merits docket. This means that the justices have agreed to schedule the case for oral argument and will subsequently release a decision on the merits of the issues presented.
The case’s origins can be traced back to early 2025, when the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking to obtain records about DOGE, which was established to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. This included attempts to acquire DOGE’s “organizational chart and financial disclosures,” according to CBS News.
As described by InfluenceWatch, the Soros-backed CREW is a leftist advocacy group “focused on public integrity issues.” The organization has gained a reputation for “opposing actions of both the first and second Trump administrations,” which includes filing “several lawsuits challenging administrative actions since the beginning of the second Trump administration in 2025.”
In rejecting CREW’s request, the Trump administration argued that DOGE is not subject to FOIA because it serves as an advisory entity to the president and operates as part of his office. As such, CREW asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel DOGE to turn over the sought-after records.
D.C. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, ruled in spring 2025 that DOGE is “likely covered by FOIA.” The Obama appointee went on to order the fraud investigator to “process CREW’s request on an expedited timetable and … begin producing documents on a rolling basis as soon as practicable,” and later permitted CREW to depose DOGE administrator Amy Gleason.
The Trump administration ultimately filed an emergency application asking SCOTUS to temporarily pause Cooper’s order while litigation continued. The high court granted this request (6-3) in June 2025, finding that “portions” of Cooper’s discovery order requiring “the Government to disclose the content of intra–Executive Branch [DOGE] recommendations and whether those recommendations were followed are not appropriately tailored.”
“[S]eparation of powers concerns counsel judicial deference and restraint in the context of discovery regarding internal Executive Branch communications,” the majority ruled at the time.
Upon remand to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, CREW withdrew its request for several categories of records. The organization still attempted to acquire information through its discovery requests, such as “actions ‘directed’ by [DOGE] at federal agencies” and “all ‘directives’ made by [DOGE’s] Administrator to [DOGE’s] employees.”
The D.C. Circuit subsequently sided with CREW. In permitting the collection of sought-after information to move forward, the appellate court ruled that the group sufficiently narrowed its request in a way that complied with the Supreme Court’s interim order.
With nowhere left to turn, the Trump administration petitioned SCOTUS in March. The government asked the justices to determine “[w]hether the court of appeals’ order departed from this court’s instructions and the separation-of-powers principles that this court articulated in Cheney v. United States District Court” and “whether a court may order broad discovery against an Executive Office advisory body — potentially providing much information sought on the merits of a plaintiff’s FOIA claims — to determine whether FOIA’s disclosure requirements apply in the first place.”
A date for oral arguments in U.S. DOGE Service v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has not been announced as of this article’s publication.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood