Supreme Court Agrees to Decide Whether DOGE Must Open Its Records to the Public

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear the Trump administration’s bid to keep a government watchdog group from obtaining records about the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting operation once led by Elon Musk, setting up a test of whether the public records law reaches one of the most powerful offices of the president’s second term.

The case was brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, known as CREW, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request soon after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025 and sued when the records did not come. CREW argues that DOGE acted as a federal agency and is therefore covered by the law. The administration says that despite its name, DOGE is a presidential advisory body and is exempt.

Lower courts have sided with the watchdog. In March 2025, federal District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington ruled that DOGE was likely subject to the records law and ordered the request processed quickly, reasoning that indefinite delay would harm the public. An appeals court panel also ruled for CREW and allowed the group’s lawyers to question DOGE’s acting administrator, Amy Gleason, under oath.

This is the second time the dispute has reached the justices. In June 2025, the court’s conservative majority concluded that Cooper had ruled too broadly and narrowed his order allowing CREW to gather evidence, including the Gleason deposition. Those requests remain on hold while the case proceeds.

After that setback, CREW narrowed what it is asking for. It now seeks DOGE’s guidance to agencies and staff on canceling contracts and firing federal workers, and says none of its requests involve White House communications that the law may shield. The government still objects, and Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the court to settle the central question of whether DOGE is an agency at all.

DOGE played a leading role in the dismissal of thousands of federal employees, the cancellation of government funding and the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, though its operations have since dwindled. When it was created, it effectively took the place of the United States Digital Service, and the administration now calls it the United States DOGE Service.

“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,” Nikhel Sus, a CREW lawyer, said in a statement. The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’s request for comment.

The administration’s strongest argument is a structural one: the records law has never reached the president’s close advisers, and the government says DOGE was built to be exactly that kind of body, whatever its title. CREW’s answer is that an office that ordered firings and canceled contracts across the government was doing an agency’s work. The court is expected to rule by the end of June.