Judge bans Musk's DOGE from accessing Treasury payments

Feb. 8 (UPI) -- A federal judge early Saturday blocked Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team from accessing the Treasury Department payment system, the latest in a series legal orders against the Trump administration.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan issued the order shortly after midnight on an emergency filing by 19 Democratic attorneys general on Friday.

"The conduct of Doge members presents a unique security risk to the States and State residents whose data is held," the original complaint charged.

Engelmayer, appointed by President Barack Obama, agreed with them, adding the states were likely to show that the new arrangement was illegal.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., had already limited access to this system by two Musk allies, Tom Krause and Marko Elez, who had been embedded within Treasury as "special government employees. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, appointed by President Bill Clinton, signed the order, which Department of Justice lawyers earlier agreed to on Wednesday.

Engelmayer's order goes further, preventing them and many other government employees from accessing the system until at least Feb. 14. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was ordered to respond by then.

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, a Joe Biden appointee, has called a hearing on the matter in New York.

Access was limited to "civil servants with a need for access ... who have passed all background checks and security clearances and all information security training" required by laws and regulations," the judge said.

And he ordered the prohibited workers to "immediately destroy and all copies of material downloaded."

A White House spokesman and Musk blasted the ruling.

"These frivolous lawsuits are akin to children throwing pasta at the wall to see if it will stick," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told CNN in a statement. "This activist judge has resorted to locking the Senate confirmed Secretary of Treasury out of his role. It's absurd and judicial overreach."

Musk noted on the X platform he owns that DOGE and the long-time career Treasure Department employees "jointly" agreed to rules that handle payments, including a "rational" in the comment field of a check and following a "DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored."

He said there are $100 billion of entitlements payments to individuals with no Social Security Number or even a temporary ID number, and he said a "rough guess" from Treasury that half are fraud. "If accurate, this is extremely suspicious," he posted.

On Friday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the Trump administration to immediately halt putting at least 2,200 employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development on administrative leave. District Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by Trump, made his decision before the agency planned to retain fewer than 300 people as essential personnel as of 11:59 p.m. ET Friday.

And other judges have intervened to limit Trump's early efforts related to birthright citizenship, a sweeping spending freeze, a government-wide resignation program and the relocation transgender prison inmates.

But District Judge John Bates, appointed by President George W. Bush, in Washington, D.C., ruled he will not limit DOGE representatives from accessing Labor Department data for now, rejecting an emergency request by labor unions and a think tank.

Esk, one of the two who had access to the Treasury Department records, resigned after a Wall Street Journal report about his racist social media posts.

One day later Musk posted on X, the platform he owns: "He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.

Vice President JD Vance publicly voiced support for the employee. "Here's my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez's posts, but I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life," Vance wrote on X.