A federal choose briefly blocked Elon Musk’s DOGE from accessing Treasury Division information containing private data like Social Safety numbers early this morning, studies Interior Metropolis Press.
The order is in response to a lawsuit filed yesterday in New York’s Southern District Court docket. The go well with alleges that the administration exceeded its authority, broke the US Administrative Procedures Act, and violated the US Structure’s separation of powers doctrine when it granted DOGE entry to the Treasury’s federal funds system.
District Choose Paul A. Engelmeyer’s order now prohibits the Trump administration ”from granting entry to all political appointees, particular authorities workers, and authorities workers detailed from an company exterior the Treasury Division, to any Treasury Division cost file, cost methods, or some other information methods maintained by the Treasury Division containing personally identifiable data and/or confidential monetary data of payees.”
Engelmeyer additionally orders that these prohibited from accessing the information should “instantly destroy any and all copies of fabric downloaded from the Treasury Division’s information and methods” since January twentieth, 2025. A listening to is scheduled for February 14th.
In a press launch asserting the lawsuit Friday, New York Legal professional Basic Letitia James, who filed the lawsuit, defined:
President Trump doesn’t have the facility to present away Individuals’ personal data to anybody he chooses, and he can not lower federal funds permitted by Congress. Musk and DOGE haven’t any authority to entry Individuals’ personal data and a few of our nation’s most delicate information.
Attorneys Basic from these different states joined James within the lawsuit: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
The lawsuit is one among a number of levied in opposition to Trump’s administration since he took workplace, together with a separate one over DOGE’s entry to Treasury information filed on February third. Responding to different authorized motion, federal judges have additionally blocked Trump’s govt order concentrating on birthright citizenship, with one calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”