Politico reports:

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to block an effort to open the inner workings of the secretive DOGE cost-cutting effort to public scrutiny.

The Justice Department filed an emergency appeal Wednesday urging the high court to put a hold on a judge’s orders giving a watchdog group access to documents detailing firings, grant terminations and other actions proposed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which was overseen by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Solicitor General John Sauer is also asking the Supreme Court to block a deposition of the obscure official the Trump administration has identified as the leader of the budget-cutting drive: DOGE administrator Amy Gleason.

The appeal is the latest in more than a dozen expedited requests the administration has brought to the Supreme Court in the first four months of President Donald Trump’s second term. The myriad requests have sought the justices’ quick intervention to block preliminary lower-court rulings on everything from Trump’s immigration agenda to his layoff plans for federal workers. One other emergency appeal pending before the justices also relates to DOGE: a bid by the administration to give DOGE access to sensitive Social Security data.

Wednesday’s appeal comes in a case in which Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is suing under the Freedom of Information Act to seek records about DOGE’s operations.

The Trump administration contends that DOGE, formally known as the U.S. DOGE Service, is exempt from FOIA because DOGE only provides advice to the president and federal agency officials and has no independent decision-making authority.

However, in a series of rulings beginning in March, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found there were strong indications that DOGE was actually directing cuts and layoffs at numerous federal agencies. That substantive operational role suggests DOGE’s activities fall under the Freedom of Information Act, the judge wrote. [Continue reading…]