Supreme Court pauses order for DOGE records and testimony

Zoe Tillman and Greg Stohr, Bloomberg News on May 23, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower-court order that would force Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to turn over documents to a watchdog group and make a top official available to testify.

The order on Friday, in a fight over whether the office is covered by U.S. public records laws, is a preliminary win for the Trump administration. Without explanation, Chief Justice John Roberts granted the government’s request for an administrative stay while the justices decide whether to adopt a longer-term pause. He didn’t specify when that might happen.

The order means U.S. officials for now will avoid fast-approaching deadlines requiring them to disclose information about who works for DOGE and what the office has been up to since President Donald Trump created it hours after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

The wrangling over evidence and testimony is part of a broader legal fight about whether the U.S. DOGE Service should be considered a federal agency under the federal Freedom of Information Act. That law generally entitles the public to a wide range of agency records and information, but some executive branch offices are exempt.

The Trump administration disputes that DOGE is covered by the public records law. A federal judge in Washington authorized the group that sued, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, to gather evidence about the office’s structure and activities in order to respond to the government. That order set off the latest fight that landed before the justices.

“This is just an administrative procedure to allow the court time to consider the case, as the deadline for discovery was fast approaching,” CREW spokesperson Jordan Libowitz said in a statement Friday. “This is an expected move. We hope to see the court decide on the merits of the government’s petition after the holiday weekend.”

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement that groups like CREW pressing public records requests on DOGE “fundamentally misunderstand how the White House and its components function. The Trump administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”

The order came ahead of a deadline next week for the administration to produce certain information to CREW about DOGE. There are more deadlines in the coming weeks for DOGE to turn over records and make administrator Amy Gleason available to testify under oath at a deposition.

Although Musk has been the public face of DOGE, he and White House officials have denied he holds a formal position within the office or has any authority to direct agencies to carry out the president’s cost-cutting agenda.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington previously said that he was likely to conclude that DOGE is covered by the records law, but hasn’t made a final decision yet. A federal appeals court rejected the administration’s effort to block Cooper’s order allowing CREW to collect evidence, a process also known as discovery, earlier this month.

The Justice Department claimed that the order allowing CREW to demand information and question Gleason violated the Constitution’s separation of powers protections, “subjecting a presidential advisory body to intrusive discovery and threatening the confidentiality and candor of its advice.”

CREW’s lawyers argued the administration was trying to leapfrog the discovery issue and get the justices to rule on the core issue of DOGE’s status under the Freedom of Information Act. The group argued that the government wanted courts to “blindly yield” to the executive branch’s position on whether certain offices are covered by the law and empower presidents to circumvent “critical transparency laws.”