Judge blocks Elon Musk’s team from Treasury Department records
According to court documents, a federal judge blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing personal financial data from millions of Americans in the Treasury Department records.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul A.
The move comes after 19 state attorneys generals sued the Trump administration after a cost-cutting initiative led by Musk.
They argued that Musk, a “special government employee”, violated federal law, not Musk of the official government department.
In an article on X, Musk called the ruling “absolutely crazy.”
“How exactly should we stop fraud and wasting taxpayers’ money without seeing how it is spent?” he wrote.
The Democratic state attorney general sued Trump on Friday, Treasury and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The order from Engelmayer was issued earlier on Saturday, saying states would face irreparable harm without immediate relief.
“This is both because of the risk of the new policy disclosure of sensitive and confidential information, and the risk of the relevant systems being more vulnerable than before,” the order reads.
The order restricts the defendants from granting access to special government employees, political appointees and employees outside of other departments the Treasury records containing personally identifiable or confidential information.
The ban restricts no one else from accessing records other than civil servants who are required to work in the Finance Services Bureau and have passed background checks.
The judge further ordered the persons who were restricted to destroy copies of the records immediately.
Conditions will remain in place until the next court hearing on February 14.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the attorney general who filed the lawsuit, said the Trump administration has granted Musk and the gate a “unprecedented access” to personal data.
“Over the past week, my office has heard from more than a thousand New Yorkers who are worried they will lose their privacy and rely on vital funds from the community due to Musk and Doch’s intervention,” she said.
In Trump’s second semester United States International Development Agency (USAID)allocate billions of dollars of aid worldwide.
