A federal choose quickly blocked Elon Musk’s DOGE from accessing Treasury Division information containing private info like Social Safety numbers early this morning, reports Inner City Press.
The order is in response to a lawsuit filed yesterday in New York’s Southern District Courtroom. 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 access to the Treasury’s federal payments 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 fee file, fee programs, or another information programs maintained by the Treasury Division containing personally identifiable info and/or confidential monetary info 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 programs” since January twentieth, 2025. A listening to is scheduled for February 14th.
In a press release asserting the lawsuit Friday, New York Lawyer Basic Letitia James, who filed the lawsuit, defined:
President Trump doesn’t have the ability to provide away Individuals’ personal info to anybody he chooses, and he can not reduce federal funds accepted by Congress. Musk and DOGE don’t have any authority to entry Individuals’ personal info 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 certainly one of 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 3rd. Responding to different authorized motion, federal judges have also blocked Trump’s government order concentrating on birthright citizenship, with one calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”