DOGE in court

For months, the Trump administration has fended off legal challenges to DOGE’s sweeping interventions in federal governance by insisting that neither DOGE nor its de facto leader, Elon Musk, have real decision-making authority. The common refrain—expressed in court filings, sworn statements, and depositions—is that DOGE merely advises agencies on which contracts to slash or which personnel to lay off en masse. According to the government, it’s ultimately up to the relevant agency officials to decide whether to act on DOGE’s recommendations.

It’s a convenient narrative. As a matter of legal strategy, the idea that DOGE merely advises rather than directs agency decision-making is a key part of the government’s defense in litigation alleging violations of the Appointments Clause. In other cases, the government has argued that DOGE is not an “agency” subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) because its role is limited to advising and assisting the president.

To be sure, there’s already a voluminous body of public evidence—from Trump and Musk’s own statements to court documents to media reporting on DOGE’s activities—contradicting the government’s claim that DOGE is an advisory entity. But much of that evidence, while compelling, is circumstantial or based on “social media posts and news reports,” as one appeals court recently complained.

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But a new court filing reveals the most compelling evidence yet that the government has been spinning a fiction in federal court. The underlying case, Amica Center for Immigrant Rights v. United States Department of Justice, was brought by a network of legal aid groups that subcontract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which provides legal services for non-citizens and unaccompanied minor children.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum directing the Justice Department to review—and, potentially, terminate—all contracts with organizations “that support or provide services to removable or illegal aliens.” The legal aid groups moved to block the Justice Department from terminating its contracts based on Bondi’s memorandum.

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[A District Court] judge entered an order requiring the Justice Department to provide the plaintiffs “with at least three business days’ notice before suspending or terminating” any of the funding at issue.

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[A] DOGE associate embedded at the Justice Management Division—reportedly as an information technology “advisor”—directed senior Justice Department officials to immediately “terminate” the Acacia Center’s contracts. When the senior officials were unable or unwilling to do so within an hour, the DOGE associate took matters into his own hands, soliciting a contract officer to send the termination notice. He apparently did so without the knowledge of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which administers the contracts. While the April 3 termination notice was rescinded the following day, a second notice was issued on April 10, again at the urging of the DOGE associate.

  Lawfare

The article gives a detailed account of happenings after that in the case, the upshot of which is...

The litigation in the Amica case is ongoing, and it remains unclear how the newly-revealed information about DOGE’s role might affect the legal arguments and outcome in the case.

Still, whatever impact it may or may not have within the four corners of the Amica case, the new information reflects an important factual development in the public record concerning DOGE and its activities. The government’s administrative record provides documentary evidence that, at least in some instances, DOGE and its agents are not merely advising but are in fact directing agency action.