By Andrew Chung
Oct 13 (Reuters) - The US Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to decide whether President Donald Trump's administration can avoid handing over records to a watchdog group about its Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative aimed at slashing agency budgets and workers spearheaded last year by his former adviser Elon Musk.
The justices took up the administration's appeal of a federal judge's order for DOGE to respond to requests by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
for information about its operations. The court is expected to hear arguments in the case and issue a ruling by the end of June.
Washington-based US District Judge Christopher Cooper in April 2025 ordered the disclosures, finding that DOGE likely is a government agency covered by the federal Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to halt the judge's order.
"We will continue to pursue transparency for the American people, who deserve to know the details of the Trump administration's efforts to unilaterally remake the federal government," said Nikhel Sus, chief legal counsel for the watchdog group, called CREW.
DOGE moved swiftly after Trump returned to office in January 2025 to carry out his effort to downsize and reshape the US government, making dramatic moves to slash the federal workforce, dismantle certain agencies and redirect work to the president's priorities.
Trump officially established DOGE by executive order on his first day back in office, specifying an "18-month DOGE agenda." DOGE announced on July 4, 2025, in a social media post that its "formal mission" had come to an end.
DOGE said it had slashed tens of billions of dollars in expenditures, but its claims were difficult for outside financial experts to verify.
Federal auditors found that some of DOGE's reported savings across contract, grant and lease terminations were incorrect, lacked supporting evidence or included terminations that were already underway when DOGE was established, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.
Last month, federal auditors probing the protection of sensitive information and data during DOGE's access to multiple federal agency systems reported that, due to limited information they were provided, "Congress and the public lack assurance that systems and data were protected."
Musk, the world's richest person, has financially backed candidates from Trump's Republican Party and supported Trump himself in the 2024 US election. Musk led DOGE initially but left the role a few months later. He then had a falling out with Trump over the cost of the president's tax and spending bill that was later patched up.
DOGE SECRECY
CREW said its intention was to shed light on what it called DOGE's secretive structure and operations. It sued to obtain an array of records from DOGE through the FOIA statute, a law that allows the public to seek access to records produced by government agencies, over its role in the mass firings and cuts to federal programs.
The Trump administration contends that DOGE was an advisory body to the president and, under Supreme Court precedent, exempt from FOIA. In response, CREW sought information to determine whether DOGE was subject to FOIA because it wielded the kind of authority of an agency independent of the president.
Cooper ruled that DOGE must turn over some records sought by CREW and that the group was entitled to question DOGE official Amy Gleason at a deposition.
The Supreme Court in June 2025 granted an emergency request by Trump's administration, ordering the DC Circuit to narrow the judge's directives concerning DOGE.
CREW then abandoned some of its information requests, and the DC Circuit in July of this year refused the administration's request to halt the disclosure — prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
