The Supreme Court granted a Justice Department request to review an order that could expose how much power the White House’s cost-cutting office wielded over firings and spending cuts across the government.
The justices granted the petition Tuesday, according to the court’s docket. The government is fighting a lawsuit by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington seeking records from the Department of Government Efficiency, officially known as the U.S. DOGE Service.
CREW argues the office wielded enough independent power to fall under the Freedom of Information Act. It’s the second time the case has reached the justices, who last year reined in an earlier order, the Associated Press reported.
The order under review lets CREW seek evidence, a process known as discovery, about the office’s directives to cancel contracts and fire workers. It also lets CREW seek information about the office’s access to sensitive data, records on its employees, and sworn testimony from its leader, according to the Justice Department’s brief.
“Perhaps most dramatically, the court of appeals summarily approved the deposition of a high-level presidential advisor—USDS Administrator Amy Gleason—without even acknowledging that it was doing so,” the brief said.
“[D]iscovery into sensitive interbranch communications risks chilling future communications by presidential advisors who will have to fear having their advice disclosed in litigation,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.
“USDS has already made clear that it has issued no binding directives to agencies because it lacks the legal authority to do so,” Sauer argued.
In February 2025, CNN’s Alayna Treene asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the office’s staff had real authority, including power to make hiring and firing decisions, Treene wrote on X.
“DOGE does not have statutory authority. DOGE is advising...It’s ultimately up to the discretion of these secretaries to make these hirings & firings,” Leavitt said.
Statutory authority is power Congress grants. The government’s brief makes the same case, calling the office “a purely advisory body.” If sworn evidence shows that advice functioned as orders, the White House’s own description of the office could turn into a liability.
Courts in other cases have already used evidence of the office’s role to void its actions, including in May, when U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in New York ordered the National Endowment for the Humanities to restore more than 1,400 grants worth more than $100 million.
Documents revealed in discovery in that case showed DOGE staffers used ChatGPT to flag grants for cancellation, according to Inside Higher Ed.
“DOGE had no statutory authority to terminate NEH grants,” McMahon wrote, according to Minnesota Lawyer. “And on the undisputed evidence, DOGE — not the NEH Chairperson or anyone else at NEH — effectuated the terminations at issue here.”
In March, in a separate case brought by nonprofit groups, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan allowed claims to proceed that DOGE’s leader needed Senate confirmation before allegedly directing federal workforce actions.
CREW’s June brief opposing review described “massive changes across the federal government,” including former White House adviser Elon Musk’s announcement of canceled contracts “worth billions of dollars.” The brief also cited the office’s “unprecedented access to sensitive personal and classified data and payment systems.”
“This appeal is an obvious delay tactic to keep the American public in the dark about DOGE’s reckless operation and disastrous impact,” CREW President Donald K. Sherman said after the petition was filed in March.
CREW chief counsel Nikhel Sus said Tuesday the group intends to keep pressing for “transparency” about DOGE.
