Judge won’t block DOGE from accessing Labor Department systems

A federal judge Friday evening refused to block the Labor Department from giving Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to confidential systems or firing employees for refusing to hand over the credentials.

U.S. District Judge John Bates found the plaintiffs hadn’t show enough injury to have legal standing to bring the lawsuit.

“This data includes the medical and financial records of millions of Americans,” wrote Bates. “But on the current record, plaintiffs have failed to establish standing. So although the Court harbors concerns about defendants’ alleged conduct, it must deny plaintiffs’ motion at this time.”

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by the AFL-CIO and several of its affiliate government employee unions, claims that giving Musk’s team access to the Labor Department systems violates federal privacy law and is without any legal authority.

At a hearing earlier in the day, Bates voiced concerns about the DOGE team’s access and its broader efforts to rapidly implant itself across the federal bureaucracy in the early weeks of President Trump’s administration.

“A couple people who, according to public reports, are very young, who have never been in the federal government, never had any training with respect to the hands of confidential information — you're asking me to just put absolute confidence in the fact that nothing inappropriate will happen,” said Bates, an appointee of the younger former President Bush.

“Doesn’t seem to me to be a setup that would very easily give me confidence that there will be no misadventure,” the judge continued, laughing under his breath.

Bates’s ruling doesn’t reach whether the access is unlawful, however, by finding the challengers had no legal standing.

Heading into the weekend, the plaintiffs have indicated they will expand their lawsuit to other areas where DOGE has implanted, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They also are considering adding the Education Department but may instead defer to Public Citizen’s lawsuit on that front, which has already commenced.

“We are here because of a fast-moving situation with a substantial amount of factual uncertainty,” Mark Samburg, senior counsel at Democracy Forward, a left-leaning group that frequently brings cases against the president and represents the unions, said at Friday’s hearing.

“What isn't uncertain at this moment in time, Your Honor, is the sensitive information of millions of people is currently at imminent risk of unlawful disclosure from the Department of Labor, but for this court's rapid action,” he continued.

The Justice Department urged the judge to allow DOGE’s efforts to move forward, insisting the plaintiffs have no standing and that providing the access doesn’t violate privacy laws or constitute a “final agency action” that the courts can review.

“There's no individual who has been identified as being harmed by these potential disclosures of unspecified systems,” said Justice Department attorney Michael Gerardi.

Earlier Friday, 19 Democratic state attorneys general sued over DOGE personnel’s access to Treasury Department systems, adding to a previous lawsuit already filed.

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