{"id":1538013,"date":"2025-05-25T16:50:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T20:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1538013"},"modified":"2025-05-25T16:50:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T20:50:00","slug":"supreme-court-temporarily-shields-doge-from-freedom-of-information-requests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/supreme-court-temporarily-shields-doge-from-freedom-of-information-requests\/1538013\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Temporarily Shields DOGE From Freedom Of Information Requests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Temporarily Shields DOGE From Freedom Of Information Requests<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court on May 23 temporarily blocked lower court orders requiring the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to respond to freedom of information requests in a pending lawsuit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on May 19, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu\/The Epoch Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14158 on Jan. 20, implementing DOGE, an advisory body that recommends cost-cutting measures for federal agencies. The executive order directed the entity to \u201cimplement the President\u2019s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief Justice John Roberts issued<\/a> what\u2019s called an administrative stay that puts lower court orders on hold while the justices consider how to handle the case. Roberts did not provide reasons for his decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The orders issued by the federal district court in Washington \u201care hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court,\u201d Roberts wrote in his new order.<\/p>\n

The case is US DOGE Service v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).<\/p>\n

In the legal proceeding, CREW argued that it needs to know more about DOGE\u2019s operations because DOGE allegedly wields \u201cunprecedented\u201d authority over the government and is doing so under conditions of \u201cunusual secrecy.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application<\/a> with the Supreme Court in the case on May 21.<\/strong><\/p>\n

DOGE is an advisory body located in the executive branch\u2014as opposed to an agency\u2014so it \u201cis exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),\u201d Sauer wrote.<\/p>\n

The Freedom of Information Act, which took effect in 1966, allows<\/a> individuals \u201cto obtain access to government information in executive branch agency records,\u201d subject to certain exceptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cFOIA applies to records created by federal agencies and does not cover records held by Congress, the courts, or state and local government agencies<\/strong>,\u201d a government website says.<\/p>\n

Sauer wrote that despite DOGE\u2019s status as an advisory body, the district court ordered it \u201cto submit to sweeping, intrusive discovery just to determine if USDS is subject to FOIA in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discovery is a process in which parties in a lawsuit obtain evidence from other parties.<\/p>\n

Sauer said the district court\u2019s order \u201cturns FOIA on its head, effectively giving [CREW] a win on the merits of its FOIA suit under the guise of figuring out whether FOIA even applies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, he wrote, the court order \u201cclearly violates the separation of powers, subjecting a presidential advisory body to intrusive discovery and threatening the confidentiality and candor of its advice, putatively to address a legal question that never should have necessitated discovery in this case at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separation of powers is a constitutional doctrine that divides the government into three branches to prevent any single branch from accumulating too much power.<\/p>\n

CREW opposed<\/a> the government\u2019s emergency application to halt the district court order earlier in the day on May 23 and argued that what the Trump administration \u201cis really seeking is not relief from the district court\u2019s narrowly-tailored discovery order, but rather a ruling on the merits of whether the United States DOGE Service, a new component of the Executive Office of the President, is operating as an \u2018agency\u2019 subject to the Freedom of Information Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

The brief stated that to obtain information about DOGE\u2019s \u201csecretive structure and operations, CREW submitted an expedited FOIA request to DOGE on January 24, 2025,\u201d but DOGE failed to respond in a timely manner.<\/strong><\/p>\n

CREW then sued, arguing that DOGE is wielding \u201csubstantial independent authority,\u201d which effectively makes it an \u201cagency\u201d that is subject to FOIA and the Federal Records Act, according to the brief.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 05\/25\/2025 – 12:50<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/supreme-court-temporarily-shields-doge-freedom-information-requests<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Temporarily Shields DOGE From Freedom Of Information Requests Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Supreme Court on May…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1538014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1538013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1538014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}