US judge rules Musk’s Doge must release records

Boston — A US federal judge has ordered the government-downsizing team spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk to make public records concerning its operations, which he said had been run in “unusual secrecy”.

On Monday, Washington-based district judge Christopher Cooper sided with a government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), in finding that the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was probably subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The ruling, the first of its kind, marked an early victory for advocates seeking to force Doge to become more transparent about its role in the mass firings being conducted in the federal workforce and the dismantling of government agencies by the Republican president’s administration.

The Trump administration argued Doge as an arm of the executive office of the president was not subject to the act, which allows the public to seek access to records produced by government agencies.

But Cooper, an appointee of Democratic former president Barack Obama, said Doge was exercising “substantial independent authority” much greater than the other components of that office that are usually exempt from the act.

Cooper said it “appears to have the power not just to evaluate federal programmes, but to drastically reshape and even eliminate them wholesale”, which the judge said the agency declined to refute.

He said its “operations thus far have been marked by unusual secrecy”, citing reports about Doge’s use of an outside server, its employees’ refusal to identify themselves to career officials and their use of the encrypted app Signal to communicate.

Donald Sherman, Crew’s executive director and chief counsel, welcomed the ruling. “Now more than ever, Americans deserve transparency in their government,” he said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Crew launched the lawsuit on February 20 after filing requests under the federal freedom of information law, seeking information on Doge’s operations, including communications such as internal government emails and memos.

Crew asked Cooper to order the records be released by Monday, arguing that the public and Congress needed the information during the debate over government funding legislation that must pass by Friday to avert a partial government shutdown.

Cooper declined to set a Friday deadline to produce the records. But he ordered records produced on an expedited basis, citing a need for timely information on Doge given the “unprecedented” authority it was exercising.

Reuters