Judge orders sweeping restriction on DOGE access to sensitive Treasury payment systems

[Thiệu Ngô]

The judge limited access to “civil servants with a need for access” who have “passed all background checks and security clearances.”

By Kyle Cheney

A federal judge on Saturday issued a sweeping block on most Trump administration officials — including Elon Musk and his allies — from accessing sensitive Treasury records for at least a week while legal proceedings play out in New York.

Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued the middle-of-the-night order after an emergency request by 19 Democratic attorneys general warning that the efforts by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency allies to take control of Treasury’s sensitive payment systems — which have access to personal information of millions of Americans and the government’s financial transactions — were putting their residents at risk.

Engelmayer said he agreed with the states’ assessment that the abrupt changes in policy implemented by the Trump administration had created a risk that sensitive data would be disclosed or that the system could be hacked. He also said the states were very likely to show that the new arrangement was legally improper.

A federal judge in Washington had already limited access to this system to a pair of Musk allies who had been embedded within Treasury as “special government employees,” as well as other existing Treasury employees and officials with legitimate reasons to access it. But Engelmayer’s order goes further, barring even the two Musk-associated officials — Tom Krause and Marko Elez — and many other government employees from accessing the system until at least Feb. 14, when a different federal judge has called a hearing on the matter.

Instead, Engelmayer limited access to the Treasury system 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 Barack Obama-appointed judge also affirmatively barred any political appointees or special government employees detailed to Treasury — the designation given to Musk’s allies — from accessing the system. And he ordered Treasury Department leaders to require that any newly prohibited officials who already accessed such information to “immediately destroy and all copies of material downloaded.”

The order is the latest in a series of emergency interventions by the courts to block the Trump administration’s rapid-fire attempt — led by Musk’s DOGE office in the White House — to remake the federal bureaucracy. Engelmayer’s order followed by just hours a block by a federal judge in Washington on a Musk-led drive to quickly dismantle USAID, the agency responsible for administering foreign aid programs. 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.

Though Engelmayer issued the emergency order, the case will ultimately be handled by U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, a Joe Biden appointee who was confirmed to the bench last year.