A federal judge in Washington seemed reluctant on Feb. 17 to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and has not yet issued a final ruling.
The plaintiffs, 15 state attorneys general, allege that DOGE overstepped its authority while attempting to reduce government waste and shrink the size of the federal workforce.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan seemed skeptical of this allegation and will issue a full ruling before the evening of Feb. 18.
“DOGE was organized, enacted, created, to cut waste,” which was within its authority, she said during a hearing on Feb. 17.
The case comes after a lawsuit filed against President Donald Trump, DOGE, and Elon Musk, who is leading the agency.
The suit was brought by 14 states: New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Washington.
The suit also alleges that Trump violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution when he formed DOGE and set Musk to head the agency without first consulting Congress.
DOGE, established by Trump on his first day in office, was created by renaming the U.S. Digital Service, whose mission is to “deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design.”
The plaintiffs originally issued a broad request for relief, asking the court to impose an 11-point restriction plan on DOGE.
Some of those restrictions would have forbidden DOGE from changing the disbursement of public funds by agencies, canceling government contracts, rescinding regulations and amendments, or “taking steps to dismantle agencies created by law or otherwise asserting control over such agencies.”
Following a hearing on Feb. 14, the judge asked the plaintiffs to file a new order, narrowing their request for relief.
The plaintiffs complied, shrinking their request to two restrictions: accessing and copying government agency data or conducting mass firings and layoffs.
The order, if granted, would extend to the Office of Personnel Management, and the departments of Health and Human Services, Transportation, Commerce, Education, and Labor.
The plaintiffs noted that the impact of DOGE’s changes cannot be undone overnight and referenced media reports that DOGE has called for cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which the plaintiffs argued would affect Indian Health Services in New Mexico.
“The court can’t act based on media reports,” the judge had earlier noted.
She also said the plaintiff’s request for more time to uncover examples of harm “undercuts” the need for a TRO.
In this case, she questioned whether the alleged harm, the shutdown of some government programs or the firing of employees, was irreversible, especially since many harms claimed by the plaintiff states had not occurred yet.
She also asked the Department of Justice’s attorney to confirm whether mass firings by DOGE or any agencies had occurred last week or were planned in upcoming weeks, when he was unable to do so during the hearing.
“I think it would be very relevant for me to find out if thousands of employees were terminated on Friday,” she said.
Chutkan also asked the attorney for assurance that the Trump administration would conduct no mass firings over the next couple of weeks.
The attorney replied that he could not make that commitment on behalf of the agencies. He also noted that there was a paper trail of previous terminations and that they had been authorized by appropriate personnel at each agency.
Attorneys for the plaintiff states repeatedly said they were not so concerned with DOGE’s accessing agencies’ data but with how that data would be used for layoffs and shutting down departments.
The government replied that this statement “gives away half the game,” since the TRO seeks to prevent DOGE from accessing that data.
