The Department of Justice today asked the Supreme Court to obstruct a judgment that needs DOGE to supply info about its federal government cost-cutting operations as part of court-ordered discovery.

President Trump’s Justice Department looked for an instant stop to orders provided by United States District Court for the District of Columbia. United States Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the Department of Government Efficiency is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as a governmental advisory body and not a main “agency.”

The district court “ordered USDS [US Doge Service] to submit to sweeping, intrusive discovery just to determine if USDS is subject to FOIA in the first place,” Sauer composed. “That order turns FOIA on its head, effectively giving respondent a win on the merits of its FOIA suit under the guise of figuring out whether FOIA even applies. And that order clearly violates the separation of powers, subjecting a presidential advisory body to intrusive discovery and threatening the confidentiality and candor of its advice, putatively to address a legal question that never should have necessitated discovery in this case at all.”

The not-for-profit guard dog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) submitted FOIA demands inquiring about DOGE and taken legal action against after DOGE authorities declined to offer the asked for records.

United States District Judge Christopher Cooper has actually up until now agreed CREW. Cooper chose in March that “USDS is likely covered by FOIA and that the public would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay in unearthing the records CREW seeks,” purchasing DOGE “to process CREW’s request on an expedited timetable.”

Judge: DOGE is not simply a consultant

DOGE then asked the district court for a summary judgment in its favor, and CREW reacted by submitting a movement for expedited discovery “seeking information relevant to whether USDS wields substantial authority independent of the President and is therefore subject to FOIA.” In an April 15 order, Cooper ruled that CREW is entitled to minimal discovery into the concern of whether DOGE is wielding authority adequate to bring it within the province of FOIA. Cooper hasn’t yet ruled on the movement for summary judgment.

“The structure of USDS and the scope of its authority are critical to determining whether the agency is ‘wield[ing] substantial authority independently of the President,'” the judge composed. “And the answers to those questions are unclear from the record.”

Trump’s executive orders appear to support CREW’s argument by recommending “that USDS is exercising substantial independent authority,” Cooper composed. “As the Court already noted, the executive order establishing USDS ‘to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda’ appears to give USDS the authority to carry out that agenda, ‘not just to advise the President in doing so.'”

Not pleased with the result, the Trump administration attempted to get Cooper’s judgment reversed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appeals court ruled versus DOGE recently. The appeals court momentarily remained the district court order in April however liquified the remain on May 14 and rejected the federal government’s petition.

“The government contends that the district court’s order permitting narrow discovery impermissibly intrudes upon the President’s constitutional prerogatives,” the appeals court stated. “the discovery here is modest in scope and does not target the President or any close adviser personally. The government retains every conventional tool to raise privilege objections on the limited question-by-question basis foreseen here on a narrow and discrete ground.”

United States argues for secrecy

A three-judge panel at the appeals court was unswayed by the federal government’s claim that this procedure is too troublesome.

“Although the government protests that any such assertion of privilege would be burdensome, the only identified burdens are limited both by time and reach, covering as they do records within USDS’s control generated since January 20,” the judgment stated. “It does not provide any specific details as to why accessing its own records or submitting to two depositions would pose an unbearable burden.”

The other day, the District Court set a discovery schedule needing the federal government to produce all responsive files within 14 days and total depositions within 24 days. In its petition to the Supreme Court today, the Trump administration argued that DOGE’s suggestions to the president need to be concealed:

The district court’s requirement that USDS turn over the compound of its suggestions– even when the suggestions were “purely advisory”– exemplifies the order’s overbreadth and intrusiveness. The court’s order forces USDS to recognize every “federal agency contract, grant, lease or similar instrument that any DOGE employee or DOGE Team member recommended that federal agencies cancel or rescind,” and every “federal agency employee or position that any DOGE employee or DOGE team member recommended” for termination or positioning on administrative leave. Even more, USDS should specify “whether [each] recommendation was followed.”

It is hard to picture a more severe invasion and concern on a governmental advisory body. Offering suggestions is the core of what USDS does. Due to the fact that USDS collaborates with companies throughout the Executive Branch on a continuous basis, that demand needs USDS to examine wide varieties of conversations that USDS has actually had every day because the start of this Administration. And such details most likely falls within the deliberative-process benefit practically by meaning, as internal executive-branch suggestions are naturally “pre-decisional” and “deliberative.”

Claim: “No significant openness” into DOGE

The United States even more stated the discovery “is unnecessary to answer the legal question whether USDS qualifies as an ‘agency’ that is subject to FOIA,” and is simply “a fishing expedition into USDS’s advisory activities under the guise of determining whether USDS engages in non-advisory activities—an approach to discovery that would be improper in any circumstance.”

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