The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear the Trump administration’s appeal in a lawsuit seeking internal records from the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting team Elon Musk led in 2025.
It is the second time the justices have stepped in, and it is a win for the administration, which asked the Court to take the case. Its argument is simple: a president’s advisers should not be dragged through open-records lawsuits.
Who sued, and what they want
The lawsuit was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, better known as CREW, a left-leaning watchdog group.
CREW argues that DOGE acted as a real federal agency. If that is true, DOGE would be covered by the Freedom of Information Act, the law that lets the public request agency records. CREW wants records from DOGE’s early days in Trump’s second term, according to the Associated Press.
The administration’s answer is simple. DOGE, it says, was a presidential advisory body, and advisory bodies that work for the president are not covered by FOIA.
The Court has already reined in this case once
In June 2025, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority cut back an order from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper that required the government to turn over DOGE documents. The majority found he had ruled too broadly, the AP reported.
The case went back down. Cooper then ruled for CREW again and ordered that its records request be processed on an expedited basis. A federal appeals court panel also sided with CREW.
Along the way, the lower courts let CREW take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason. The administration says that should never have happened.
The administration’s argument
Justice Department lawyers told the justices that the appeals court ignored the Supreme Court’s earlier instruction to weigh separation-of-powers concerns, according to the AP and Scripps News.
They argued the ruling intruded on the “autonomy and confidentiality” of the president’s advisers. “Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns” the Court had flagged, DOJ attorneys wrote.
That is the heart of it. Every president relies on advisers who give candid advice. If any activist group can sue, depose those advisers and demand their internal files, that candor dries up.
CREW’s side
CREW says the appeals court fully followed the Supreme Court’s earlier order. It argues the public has a right to know how DOGE helped carry out the 2025 overhaul of government operations.
In its brief, CREW said “undisputed facts in the public record” showed DOGE was using significant independent authority. CREW attorney Nikhel Sus said the lower courts have consistently ruled that the group is entitled to records that could show whether DOGE had that kind of authority.
Arguments have not yet been scheduled.
Why it matters beyond DOGE
The ruling will reach well past one cost-cutting team. Future presidents of both parties set up task forces and advisory groups. The question is whether those groups answer to the president, as the Constitution intends, or to whichever district judge an activist group picks.
The case is also a test of how lower courts treat the Supreme Court’s instructions. The justices sent this case back once with a warning to respect the separation of powers. The administration says the lower courts did not listen.
The bottom line
DOGE was built to find waste in a federal government that spends trillions a year. It is no surprise that the groups most invested in that government want to tie it up in court.
The Supreme Court has already told the lower courts once to slow down and respect the line between the president and the bureaucracy. Taking the case again suggests the justices are not satisfied with how that message was received.
A clear ruling that presidential advisers are not a FOIA free-for-all would protect every future president, Republican or Democrat. It would also send a message to activist litigators: you can disagree with an administration’s agenda, but you cannot use open-records law to depose your way into the Oval Office.