Saturday, 19 April 2025

JUST IN: Federal Appeals Court Hands DOGE Big Win!

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A federal appeals court has just given DOGE and the Trump administration another huge win…

This afternoon, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals halted an injunction that prevented Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive information at several agencies.

Last month, Biden-appointed Judge Deborah Boardman issued an injunction to block DOGE from accessing the data.

Today, the federal appeals court overturned that ruling in order to give DOGE the green light to continue their auditing quest.

Check out the news:

 

The ruling applies to the Education Department, the Treasury Department, and the Office of Personnel Management.

However, the court left a block in place that prevents DOGE from accessing private information from the Social Security Administration.

AP reported:

An appeals court on Monday cleared the way for billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to once again access people’s private data at three federal agencies, a win for the Trump administration as the underlying lawsuit plays out.

In a split ruling, the three-judge panel blocked a lower court decision that halted DOGE access at the Education Department, the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction last month in federal court in Baltimore, saying the government failed to adequately explain why DOGE needed the information to perform its job duties.

Led by the American Federation of Teachers, the plaintiffs allege the Trump administration violated federal privacy laws when it gave DOGE access to systems with personal information on tens of millions of Americans without their consent, including people’s income and asset information, Social Security numbers, birth dates, home addresses and marital and citizenship status.

The Trump administration says DOGE is targeting waste across the federal government by addressing alleged fraud and upgrading technology.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has also sided with the Trump administration in other cases, including allowing DOGE access to U.S. Agency for International Development and letting executive orders against diversity, equity and inclusion move forward. The court left in place, however, an order temporarily blocking DOGE from the Social Security Administration, which contains vast amounts of personal information.

Newsweek added:

A divided federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that had temporarily blocked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, from accessing sensitive data from multiple federal agencies.

Newsweek reached out to Musk via email on Monday for comment.

Previous Legal Challenges

A separate but related case involved DOGE’s attempt to access Social Security Administration data. On March 20, Maryland federal judge Ellen Hollander imposed a temporary restraining order to prevent DOGE from accessing sensitive systems within the Social Security Administration (SSA) that contain Americans’ personal information. This case was brought by the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Teachers and other representative groups.

In that ruling, Judge Hollander accused DOGE of launching a “fishing expedition” that could jeopardize privacy. “The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” she wrote. “It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.”

DOGE challenged that temporary restraining order to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on April 1 that it did not have jurisdiction because temporary restraining orders cannot be appealed. An appeal is generally only allowed once such an order is converted to a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.

What To Know

In a 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay issued by Judge Hollander, clearing the way for DOGE to obtain data from the Treasury Department, Education Department, and the Office of Personnel Management.

The appeals court also narrowly rejected, by an 8-7 vote, a request to hear the case en banc, which would have brought the matter before all active judges on the court.

What do you think?

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.

View the original article here.


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