Washington
CNN
—
The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency can now access sensitive Treasury Department systems that control trillions of dollars of payments and contain private information for millions of Americans, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
US District Judge Jeannette Vargas said in her ruling that she was clearing the way for the Elon Musk-backed team at the Treasury to access these systems because the Trump administration has created a process to train the DOGE staffers and prevent improper disclosures of private data.
A coalition of 19 states, all with Democratic attorneys general, filed the lawsuit earlier this year to block DOGE from accessing the payment systems. The Democratic states did not oppose the DOGE team at Treasury accessing the systems as long as they receive proper training, Vargas noted.
“The parties are in agreement that … the New DOGE Employees should be permitted to have access to (Bureau of the Fiscal Service) payment systems,” Vargas wrote Tuesday.
CNN has reached out to the Treasury Department for comment.
Back in February, Vargas blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury’s payment systems, finding that the Trump administration acted in a “chaotic and haphazard” way and failed to “adequately consider” the privacy and security risks of letting Musk’s team touch the data.
Her order on Tuesday eliminates many of the restrictions that she initially imposed. She had already eased some of the limitations before Tuesday’s order.
In her eight-page ruling, Vargas said the Trump administration wouldn’t need to get her permission if any additional DOGE staffers want to access the data, as long as they undergo the training, because “there is little utility in having this Court function as Treasury’s de facto human resources officer each time a new team member is onboarded.”
DOGE staffers tried earlier this year to use the Treasury payment systems to shut down spending for programs they didn’t believe should be funded, CNN previously reported.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a noted Trump critic, led the Democratic coalition behind the lawsuit and previously called DOGE’s actions an “illegal power grab.” James and the other Democratic officials previously said their lawsuit was necessary to stop Musk and his allies from withholding federal funds for essential programs like Social Security and Medicaid.
