The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to shield the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from transparency demands, temporarily halting lower court orders that required the agency to respond to freedom of information requests tied to an ongoing lawsuit.
The move on Friday buys time for an agency created by President Donald Trump through Executive Order 14158 on Jan. 20, an aggressive initiative aimed at slashing waste and forcing bloated federal bureaucracies to answer for their spending.
The executive order directed the entity to “implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay, effectively freezing the lower court orders while the Supreme Court decides how to proceed with the case. He offered no explanation for the move, leaving critics to question why transparency is being delayed yet again, The Epoch Times reported.
The orders issued by the federal district court in Washington “are hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court,” Roberts wrote in his new order.
The case, U.S. DOGE Service v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), centers on allegations that DOGE is operating behind closed doors while exercising what CREW describes as “unprecedented” power over federal agencies. In the lawsuit, CREW argues that the public has a right to know how this influential body is making sweeping decisions under what it calls a cloak of “unusual secrecy.”
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on May 21, seeking to block the lower court orders.
In the filing, Sauer argued that DOGE operates as an advisory body within the executive branch, not a federal agency, and therefore “is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).”
The Freedom of Information Act, which was signed into law in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, allows individuals “to obtain access to government information in executive branch agency records,” subject to certain exceptions.
“FOIA applies to records created by federal agencies and does not cover records held by Congress, the courts, or state and
