President Donald Trump is challenging a federal court ruling barring members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems.
This development comes after U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer slapped a preliminary injunction on the Trump administration after 19 Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the president.
The Trump administration made a filing on Sunday arguing that the injunction infringes on the president’s “absolute powers over the executive branch,” The New York Times reported.
The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and “special government employees” access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful.
The attorneys general argued in their filing that the DOGE initiative violates the separation of powers outlined in the U.S. Constitution because Congress is the branch that makes decisions regarding government spending.
Engelmayer’s injunction mandates that any DOGE member who obtained sensitive financial information must destroy the copies of the material taken from the Treasury Department. The system manages tax refunds, Social Security benefits, veterans’ benefits and other important transactions.
Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who Trump tasked with heading up DOGE, has also pushed back. In a post on X, Musk explained the agreement made between DOGE and the Treasury Department.
To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
- Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.
- All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!
- The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.
The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!
Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.
When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!!
This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.
To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2025
- Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making…
President Trump slammed Engelmayer’s ruling, calling it a “disgrace” and arguing, “No judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.”
This comment raised speculation that the president might ignore the judge’s order, but he has not explicitly indicated that he plans to take this course of action.
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