A federal judge signed off on an agreement Thursday that would temporarily limit the Department of Government Efficiency's access to sensitive Treasury Department payment systems. The ruling is part of a broader case brought against the Treasury Department, which a coalition of federal employee unions as accused of illegally sharing access to their members' information with Elon Musk's quasi-governmental operation charged with slashing the federal budget.
The lawsuit was filed by liberal nonprofit Public Citizen on behalf of the AFL-CIO and other groups.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotellyon issued her ruling with the consent of both the unions and the Treasury Department, which is now barred from providing DOGE access to “to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service."
There are, however, exceptions.
Tom Krause, chief executive of Cloud Software Group Inc., and Marko Elez, an engineer who has worked for Musk’s private companies, will both retain ostensibly read-only access to payment information. Despite Treasury Department denials to the contrary, though, a WIRED report stated that DOGE staffers have actually enjoyed read-write access, which could allowed them to rewrite code that controls Social Security, tax payments and more.
According to CNN, Krause and Elez led DOGE's efforts to shut down payments to USAID employees using the Treasury Department's payment processing system, a step so out of line with normal process that former Acting Secretary David Lebryk, a career civil servant, told DOGE agents that he did not believe “we have the legal authority to stop an authorized payment certified by an agency."
Lebryk suggested a “legally less risky approach” that would involve the State Department rescinding the payments and examining whether they complied with President Donald Trump's executive order to freeze foreign development aid. Krause, in turn, told Lebryk that if he did not immediately comply, he could put himself at legal risk. Lebryk announced his resignation from government service last Friday.
The exchange underscores how far Musk and his underlings are willing to go in using their access to government agencies to cut off money to programs he doesn't like, which circumvents Congress' constitutional power over the federal budget. The speed and forcefulness of the Trump administration, while initially catching its opponents off-guard, has now provoked a flurry of lawsuits and rallies outside government buildings — and now the first time the judge has put binding limits on DOGE access.
