Judge Declines to Block Musk Team’s Foray Into Federal Agencies
A federal judge in Washington gave President Trump a victory for now when she declined on Tuesday to bar Elon Musk and his associates from ordering mass firings or having access to data at seven federal agencies.
The judge, Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court, wrote that a coalition of 14 state attorneys general could not provide specific examples of how Mr. Musk’s team’s efforts would cause imminent or irreparable harm to the states or their residents.
“The court is aware that DOGE’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion for plaintiffs and many of their agencies and residents,” Judge Chutkan wrote, referring to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is tasked with carrying out Mr. Musk’s vision. But the mere possibility that “defendants may take actions that irreparably harm plaintiffs” was not enough to grant emergency relief, she said.
Judge Chutkan nonetheless appeared to suggest that the lawsuit had a strong chance of succeeding with the benefit of additional evidence, which could be introduced later as litigation continues.
“Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight,” she wrote.
The ruling by Judge Chutkan reflected the atmosphere of confusion surrounding the purpose and goals of Mr. Musk’s team, which judges in a number of court cases have repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked government lawyers to clarify.
It also reflected what Judge Chutkan described as the considerable uncertainty about what future cuts and layoffs could result from Mr. Musk’s effort to shrink the federal work force, which has resulted in the termination of hundreds of federal contracts and thousands of workers in recent weeks.
“The court can’t act based on media reports,” she said in a hearing on Monday. “We can’t do that.”
The coalition of 14 states had argued in the case that Mr. Musk was essentially informing his process on the fly, steering decisions about how to reshape federal agencies based on the data his team was actively extracting.
“The way in which DOGE and Mr. Musk have identified how to make cuts is through use and analysis of the agency data,” Anjana Samant, a deputy counsel at the New Mexico Department of Justice, said on Monday. “I don’t see how defendants can dispute that.”
The states had sought a temporary restraining order to prevent Elon Musk or anyone on his efficiency team from combing through data at seven agencies: the Office of Personnel Management and the Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation and Commerce Departments. It also sought to prevent Mr. Musk’s operatives from “terminating, furloughing, or otherwise placing on involuntary leave” any employees who work at those agencies.
The Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a department but a small team housed within the executive office of the president, regularly spotlights obscure grants and contracts on its website as examples of runaway spending that President Trump has given a greenlight to slash. But in the process, it has also pushed billions of dollars in cuts without explanation, and spurred personnel changes, including the firing or suspension of thousands of workers.
The coalition of states suing described the effect of those cuts in a motion as “a classic pocketbook injury,” given the federal funding states could lose as Mr. Musk’s team continues to make changes.
In the hearing on Monday, Judge Chutkan appeared to doubt whether it was possible to determine how that impact could be measured, absent clearer evidence about what the Musk team is doing.
She pressed Ms. Samant to identify cases of “imminent harm,” asking for specific examples of critical programs that the Musk team may have already targeted like a “wrecking ball,” which would justify such a sweeping emergency injunction.
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