A federal judge on Saturday issued a ruling blocking Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from having access to Treasury Department data and records.
Early Saturday morning, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer in New York halted the agency’s access to the Treasury Department’s files, just hours after the lawsuit was filed. A hearing in the case will be held on 14 February.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer explained in his ruling that the court had «received an application for a temporary restraining order from» state attorneys general in 19 states, according to Breitbart News.
The lawsuits from the attorneys general of New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin «challenge a new policy from the US Treasury Department», which came at the direction of President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
All of the state attorneys general behind the lawsuit are Democrats. New York Attorney General Letitia James is one of them. She is a strong supporter of the Democrats, and has distinguished herself as one of Trump’s sharpest critics.
The new policy «extends access to the payment systems of the Bureau of Fiscal Services» to political appointees in the Trump administration and «special government employees», Engelmayer added.
– This Court, sitting in its Part I capacity, this evening received a motion for a preliminary injunction from the Attorneys General of the 19 states identified as plaintiffs above, Engelmayer wrote.
– The states’ lawsuits challenge a new US Treasury Department policy, as directed by the President and Secretary of the Treasury, that allegedly extends access to Bureau of Fiscal Services (BFS) payment systems to political appointees and «special government employees».
Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist who co-founded Turning Point USA, responds on X:
New York Judge Paul Engelmayer just banned all political appointees – including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – from accessing Dept. of Treasury data, all based on Blueanon conspiracy theories!!
Those theories couldn’t be challenged because the order was EX PARTE – meaning…
– Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 8, 2025
Engelmayer added that the states allege in the lawsuit that the new policy «violates the Administrative Procedure Act» in several ways, noting that it «exceeds the Treasury Department’s statutory authority, violates the separation of powers doctrine, and violates the Take Care Clause of the United States Constitution.»
According to Politico, U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, will hear the case. Politico is one of the media outlets that has received support from USAID.
Engelmayer was appointed by Barack Obama.
The order is the latest in a series of legal interventions by the courts to block the Trump administration’s attempts – led by Musk’s DOGE office in the White House – to clean up the federal bureaucracy.
Engelmayer’s order came just hours after a federal judge in Washington blocked a Musk-led effort to dismantle USAID, the agency responsible for administering foreign aid programmes but which has been totally exposed by Musk’s team.
During his first term in the White House, Trump was subjected to a number of prosecutions by the judiciary, often based on allegations made by Democrats. Trump was never convicted, but had to spend a lot of time and energy fighting what appeared to be a corrupt judiciary.
Now it seems that the Democrats have woken up from the shock of their electoral defeat in November and are looking to turn up the legal heat. However, Trump is expected to be better prepared in his second term.
