The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to end a controversial court order that has barred top officials access to the Treasury Department’s massive payment system, which oversees trillions of dollars in payments each year.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, ruled Saturday that nearly all Trump administration officials, including those from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, cannot access Treasury records for at least a week.
The ruling effectively sided with 19 Democrat attorneys general who sued the Trump administration over DOGE’s access to the system. DOGE says it wants access to view potential waste, fraud, and abuse. The agency does not have the authority to take any actions on its own but can make recommendations based on its findings.
Trump’s DOJ, in a motion filed this week, asked Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas to end or amend Engelmayer’s order, which they called a “remarkable intrusion” and unconstitutional.
“Basic democratic accountability requires that every executive agency’s work be supervised by politically accountable leadership, who ultimately answer to the president,” the DOJ wrote in the filing, according to POLITICO.
The order asks that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and top officials in the department be briefed on the payment system and perform their legally required roles, the outlet noted.
The administration is fighting numerous legal efforts by Democrats and their allies to block DOGE from effectively auditing the federal government to find waste. On Friday, DOGE scored a legal win when a federal judge decided not to immediately block the department’s access to U.S. Labor Department systems.
DOGE Chair Elon Musk has been the subject of numerous personal attacks, too. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NYC), for example, has said that the billionaire is “not smart” and “lacks intelligence.” Other prominent Democrats have argued that no one “elected” a billionaire to oversee government waste.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded last week to the criticisms, emphasizing that the American people overwhelmingly elected Trump to, in part, find waste with the help of Musk.
“President Trump was elected with a mandate by the American People to make this government more efficient,” she told reporters on Wednesday. “He campaigned across this country with Elon Musk, vowing that Elon was going to head up the Department of Government Efficiency, and the two of them, with a great team around them, were going to look at the receipts of this federal government and ensure it’s accountable to American taxpayers. That’s all that is happening here.”
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