Supreme Court to Hear Case Testing Powers of Elon Musk DOGE Investigation
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0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by the Trump administration in a fight over access to records from the Department of Government Efficiency ( DOGE ).
The case stems from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit organization that has sought records related to DOGE, the entity that slashed federal spending at the start of Trump’s second term.
Supporters of DOGE, which was led by Elon Musk , viewed the department as saving taxpayer funds by eliminating duplicative, outdated or inefficient federal functions. Critics raised concerns about DOGE's scope and intent, worrying it was used to justify deep cuts to useful social programs, environmental protections or scientific agencies under the banner of “efficiency.”
CREW has argued that DOGE is a federal agency and therefore subject to FOIA requests, but the Trump administration has said it is a presidential advisory body and exempt from FOIA requirements.
Earlier, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper authorized CREW’s discovery requests into DOGE. But in June 2025, the Supreme Court decided that he ruled too broadly and sent the case back to lower courts. It did not decide whether DOGE is subject to FOIA.
CREW then adjusted its discovery requests. DOGE has returned to the Supreme Court, arguing that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has continued approving “intrusive” discovery against the entity. CREW said the justices should not have picked up the case and that it followed the Court’s instructions.
The Supreme Court is now taking up the case on its merits, rather than an emergency procedural dispute.
Federal former prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek that DOGE seemed like a “one-off” that has “fizzled out” since the early days of the Trump administration, casting doubt that a Court ruling would have broader implications for future cases.
“I don’t think it’ll have broad implications in terms of discovery requests to federal agencies because those agencies are authorized by Congress. They receive funds. The heads of those agencies—they make decisions, so I really think this is more of a one-off,” he said.
The Supreme Court was asked to address two issues: First, whether the Court of Appeals “departed from this Court’s instructions and the separation-of-powers principles that this Court articulated in Cheney v. United States District Court .”
The second is whether a court “may order broad discovery against an Executive Office advisory body—potentially providing much information sought on the merits of a plaintiff’s FOIA claims—to determine whether FOIA’s disclosure requirements apply in the first place.”
In a petition for a writ of certiorari, the Department of Justice ( DOJ ) wrote that the case “presents important questions about whether, and to what extent, discovery targeting a body within the Executive Office of the President can proceed for the paradoxical purpose of determining whether the [FOIA] applies to that body at all.”
The DOJ said that a discovery request made by CREW would “perversely give respondent much of the information that it sought in its actual FOIA requests (and in some respects even more) —before any court has held that FOIA applies.”
“Yet the D.C. Circuit declined to address whether any aspects of that discovery presented separation-of-powers concerns,” the DOJ wrote. “And the court declined to otherwise narrow that discovery to address this Court’s conclusion that the ‘ability to persuade’ is irrelevant to whether a body is an ‘agency’ under FOIA.”
The DOJ wrote that review is warranted for separation-of-powers reasons, arguing that it views DOGE as a body that advises the president and that the appeals court’s approval of “intrusive discovery” to assess whether FOIA applies “cannot be reconciled with FOIA.”
“This Court’s prior order rejected the premise underlying the discovery order by holding that USDS’s influence is irrelevant to FOIA’s applicability,” the DOJ said, referring to the United States Digital Service.
Related Story Supreme Court Update: 3 Major Cases Justices to Decide in New Term How CREW Responded CREW has criticized the government’s argument that DOGE is advisory, pointing to a district court ruling that DOGE wields “substantial independent authority.”
“Undisputed facts in the public record—including the President’s statements—confirmed that USDS was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” CREW said. “The district court found that the other preliminary-injunction factors also supported an order directing USDS to process CREW’s FOIA request on an expedited basis.”
It argued the Supreme Court should not have taken up the case.
“The petition principally pleads for summary reversal or certiorari on the scope of the discovery order that remains after remand. But the D.C. Circuit followed this Court’s instructions on that fact-intensive question to the letter,” CREW wrote.
It said the administration “fares no better in requesting certiorari so this Court can change FOIA law by prohibiting all discovery—in every case—into the nature of an EOP entity’s authority.”
The government’s proposed rule is “impossible to square with statutory text, and it would be ripe for abuse,” CREW wrote.
“Indeed, it would allow the executive to establish hugely consequential entities like USDS, while sidestepping an important sunshine law, simply by placing those entities in EOP and obscuring the precise nature of their delegated authority."
Arguments are likely to be heard later in the Supreme Court’s new term, and a decision would likely be handed down sometime next year.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jenni Fink and Sam Wilson .
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