The United States Supreme Court has agreed to consider the Trump administration’s effort to block a watchdog organisation from accessing internal records of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the controversial body involved in mass federal job cuts and the cancellation of government funding.
The case centres on an appeal by the Justice Department seeking to prevent Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) from obtaining the documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The justices agreed on Tuesday to take up the appeal, with a ruling expected by the end of June.
The Trump administration has maintained that DOGE, which was spearheaded by former presidential adviser Elon Musk, is not subject to FOIA requests. The law allows members of the public to request records held by government agencies.
DOGE attracted controversy during the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term, playing a significant role in efforts to dismantle the US Agency for International Development and prompting several legal challenges. Its activities have since declined.
The dispute has previously reached the Supreme Court. At an earlier stage, the justices issued a provisional ruling blocking parts of a lower court decision that would have required the government to release thousands of pages of documents.
That intervention also prevented lawyers representing the plaintiffs from questioning DOGE administrator Amy Gleason under oath.
The legal battle continued after the ruling. CREW narrowed the scope of its information requests, but the government maintained its objections. Following defeats in lower courts, Solicitor General D. John Sauer returned to the Supreme Court to seek another review.
The requested records have remained inaccessible while the litigation proceeds.
CREW says the remaining requests concern guidance DOGE provided to its staff on cancelling contracts and dismissing federal employees. The group argues that its requests do not cover communications with the White House that might be exempt from disclosure under FOIA.
A central issue before the court is whether DOGE qualifies as a government agency under the law. If it does, its records could be subject to public information requests.
The administration argues that DOGE is instead a presidential advisory body and should therefore be exempt from the disclosure requirements, despite its name.
The dispute is further complicated by the agency’s origins. When DOGE was established, it effectively replaced an existing government body known as the US Digital Service. The Trump administration now refers to the organisation as the US DOGE Service, or USDS.
CREW first sought information about DOGE through a FOIA request shortly after Trump took office in January 2025. The group subsequently filed a lawsuit after the records were not made available.
In March 2025, US District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, sitting in Washington, ruled that DOGE was “likely” subject to FOIA. He warned that “the public would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay in unearthing the records CREW seeks.”
The Supreme Court’s forthcoming review will focus on the legal status of DOGE and whether the records sought by the watchdog group must be disclosed under the public records law.
