Fed­er­al judge orders Elon Musk, DOGE to reveal plans to down­size gov­ern­ment, iden­ti­fy all employ­ees

Posted in Election 2024  •  Published by

An Oba­ma-appoint­ed fed­er­al judge ordered Elon Musk and the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy (DOGE) to reveal its plans to down­size the gov­ern­ment and to iden­ti­fy all its employ­ees, among oth­er actions. 

The direc­tives from U.S. Dis­trict Judge Tanya Chutkan come as 14 Demo­c­ra­t­ic state attor­neys gen­er­al are suing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, Musk and DOGE, argu­ing that Musk is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly wield­ing pow­er, accord­ing to Politi­co. Chutkan gave Musk and DOGE three weeks to pro­duce the infor­ma­tion, which ulti­mate­ly will help her decide whether to block DOGE’s oper­a­tions alto­geth­er, it added. 

The rul­ing issued Wednes­day requires Musk and DOGE to, among oth­er direc­tives: 

DOGE PROTESTERS RALLY OUTSIDE KEY DEPARTMENT AFTER EMPLOYEES ARE TOLD NOT TO REPORT TO WORK 

DOGE AND AGENCIES CANCEL 200,000 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CREDIT CARDS 

The direc­tives also call for admis­sions that “Elon Musk has direct­ed actions of DOGE per­son­nel” and that “Elon Musk is not super­vised by any Offi­cer of the Unit­ed States oth­er than the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.” 

The White House did not imme­di­ate­ly respond Thurs­day to a request for com­ment by Fox News Dig­i­tal. 

“The bur­den to Defen­dants is min­i­mized by the nar­row time peri­od for respon­sive mate­ri­als, the exclu­sion of elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, explic­it­ly exempt­ing Pres­i­dent Trump from the requests, extend­ing Defen­dants’ time to respond, and deny­ing Plain­tiffs’ request to notice depo­si­tions,” Chutkan said in her deci­sion. 

“Plan­tiffs’ Dis­cov­ery Requests shall be lim­it­ed to infor­ma­tion and mate­ri­als regard­ing agen­cies, employ­ees, con­tracts, grants, fed­er­al fund­ing, legal agree­ments, data­bas­es, or data man­age­ment sys­tems that involve or engage with Plain­tiff States; includ­ing enti­ties and insti­tu­tions oper­at­ed or fund­ed by Plain­tiff States,” she added.