Supreme Court sides with DOGE on Social Security, records cases

The justices late on Friday delivered major wins to the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in two cases on the court’s emergency docket. Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked a lower court order that required DOGE to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests. A left-leaning watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, sued the group, alleging that it was not complying with federal records laws. DOGE argued that it is not a formal government agency and therefore is not subject to those laws. Roberts sided with DOGE but returned the case to lower courts to narrow the discovery order. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

What about Social Security? In another decision on Friday, the justices determined that DOGE may access the Social Security Administration’s data systems. The majority opinion granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to overturn a lower court ruling that blocked DOGE employees from accessing the data. Two labor unions and an advocacy organization sued the Social Security Administration and DOGE in February, arguing that the SSA illegally granted DOGE access to its data systems. The lawsuit claims that DOGE access violates the Internal Revenue Code, the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act, the Federal Information Systems Modernization Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. DOGE was able to obtain access to the SSA data because the prior commissioner left and acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek agreed to grant DOGE’s request, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit goes on to question Dudek’s legitimacy, arguing that his appointment to the position violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution because Dudek was never confirmed by the Senate. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson also dissented in this case.

Dig deeper: Listen to my report on The World and Everything in It about how judicial injunctions have stalled much of Trump’s agenda.