President Donald Trump’s proposed “DOGE” government cutback commission came under fire during his inauguration ceremony Monday with three federal lawsuits seeking to shut it down before it even becomes official.
The progressive group Public Citizen and a legal advocacy firm called National Security Counselors want a federal judge to hit the brakes before the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — which isn’t an actual government agency, but an office Trump is instituting in the White House — can start recommending sweeping closures.
DOGE is the pet project of billionaire Elon Musk, who has vowed to bring Silicon Valley’s move-fast-and-break-things sensibilities to the federal bureaucracy. Trump had tapped former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead it as well, but the tech executive is reportedly leaving the initiative to campaign for Ohio governor.
In its 23-page complaint, the nonprofit Public Citizen argued that DOGE’s “members … currently do not represent the interests of everyday Americans.” It also noted that the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act allows for bureaucrats to receive outside advice but that it also “imposes various guardrails to prevent them from turning into vehicles for advancing private interests in the federal decision-making process and secretly influencing federal officials’ exercise of policymaking discretion.”
“Two billionaires, or maybe even just one billionaire, does not balance make,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, told NOTUS. “That one billionaire is the world’s richest person with massive interests throughout the government. That is undoubtedly going to color his views of what the government should and should not be doing.”
Should the lawsuit go through the discovery process, it will likely reveal where DOGE staff communicate with federal agencies, what office space they use, who identifies themselves as a member of DOGE, who provides funding and what kind of authority the group has been given, among other details that are not currently publicly available, Weissman said.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest labor union representing federal workers, joined Public Citizen’s lawsuit. While the two organizations do not usually collaborate on legal challenges, in this case they jointly agreed that their interests in stopping DOGE were mutual, Weissman said.
“It’s a time-sensitive case on relatively straightforward issues. We would expect it to move quickly,” he said when asked about next steps. The suit was filed against Trump and the Office of Management and Budget, not DOGE itself, so Weissman expects the Department of Justice to take the defense.
A similar lawsuit, filed earlier in the day by a group of attorneys who specialize in national security law, is seeking “injunctive relief which would have the effect of prohibiting [DOGE] from operating further.” It too cited the FACA law and criticized the project for its “lack of transparency,” noting how half of the project’s members are executives and venture capitalists with ties to the tech industry who intend to recommend cuts even though “not a single member of DOGE has experience working on matters of national security or representing people who do.”
A third lawsuit filed by six special interest groups representing health professionals, veterans, teachers and consumers described DOGE as “a shadow operation led by unelected billionaires who stand to reap huge financial rewards from this influence and access.” The lawsuit targeted DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees federal agencies and their funding.
It was filed by the American Public Health Association, the American Federation of Teachers, Minority Veterans of America, VoteVets, the Center for Auto Safety and the nonprofit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
—
Jose Pagliery is a reporter at NOTUS.