Elon Musk's DOGE faces lawsuits as Donald Trump takes office

WASHINGTON – Advocacy groups filed at least four lawsuits Monday to prevent President Donald Trump and his Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency from holding secret meetings or withholding documents about its recommendations.

In one case, the groups Public Citizen, the State Democracy Defenders Fund and the American Federation of Government Employees filed a lawsuit to ensure DOGE, which isn’t a department of the federal government, conducts public meetings and produces records as required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

DOGE is the Musk-led commission that will aim to cut trillions in spending and regulations from the federal government

“It fails to consider how to more efficiently regulate companies to better protect consumers, how to eliminate wasteful and inefficient corporate subsidies and efficient public investments to make America stronger,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said in a statement.

A similar lawsuit was filed by groups including the American Public Health Association, the American Federation of Teachers, Minority Veterans of America, VoteVets Action Fund and Center for Auto Safety, represented by Democracy Forward and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The Center Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit. And the group National Security Counselors, which advocates for transparency in national security issues, made a similar argument in another lawsuit.

"Nobody disputes that there is a huge amount of wasteful spending in the federal government," said Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors. "Our only concern is that DOGE, as it is currently constituted, lacks the expertise to understand how its recommendations will backfire if it pushes federal workers out without understanding why they are there in the first place."

But Trump campaigned on cutting federal spending and regulations, and has argued his election victory gave him a mandate.

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies - Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement,” Trump said in a statement when announcing DOGE in November.

The litigants contend that Trump asked DOGE to produce sweeping and consequential reductions in federal spending and regulations. The group’s recommendations to the White House Office of Management and Budget could endanger hundreds of thousands of people, one lawsuit alleged.

“This is not about cutting redundant staff; this is about billionaires gutting important programs that American citizens across the country rely on every single day without adequate  transparency or accountability,” Norm Eisen, co-founder of the State Democracy Defenders Fund, said in a statement. “We are a country where everyone is beholden to the rule of law. No one, no matter the size of their checkbook or the office they hold, is exempt from following our laws.”

Trump had named Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the new advisory group to identify government regulations and spending to cut. Ramaswamy has since shifted his focus to electoral office and is expected to campaign for governor of Ohio.

Critics have said Musk – the head of SpaceX, which receives government funding to build private rockets, and Tesla, a manufacturer of electric vehicles the government promotes with subsidies – has conflicts advising Trump.

"Government work is not corporate work" McClanahan said, "and any recommendations made without that perspective are doomed to fail."

Musk has estimated DOGE could recommend spending cuts of up to $2 trillion.

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in a statement.

The lawsuit alleges that DOGE meets the requirements to be considered a “federal advisory committee,” a class of legal entity regulated to ensure the government receives transparent and balanced advice.

Such "federal advisory committees," known as FACAs, are required by law to have “fairly balanced” representation, keep regular minutes of meetings, allow the public to attend, file a charter with Congress and more ? all steps that DOGE does not appear to have taken.

“DOGE is not exempted from FACA’s requirements,” the lawsuit states. "All meetings of DOGE, including those conducted through an electronic medium, must be open to the public.”

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the litigation is significant because it could help determine what requirements advisory committees face in terms of transparency and ethics. When former President Bill Clinton appointed his wife Hillary to a health care committee, a federal appeals court ruled she was a government employee and exempt from FACA, Tobias said.

The lawsuits were also important because the represented the type of “lawfare” Trump and Musk sought to address with DOGE, Tobias said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elon Musk's DOGE faces lawsuits as Trump takes office