A long list of states sued, arguing the Trump administration was exceeding its authority.
NEW YORK CITY—A federal judge in Manhattan has extended a temporary hold placed on the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to Department of Treasury data.
The decision came alongside a hearing at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in New York City.
The state of New York and more than a dozen other states
sued President Donald Trump and the Treasury Department, alleging that the administration was exceeding its authority in granting access.
Southern District of New York Judge Jeanette Vargas issued an order on Feb. 11 modifying another order from another judge on Feb. 8. Her order restrained political appointees’ access to Treasury data but
clarified that “this Order shall not apply to any Officer of the United States Department of the Treasury nominated by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate, in accordance with the Appointments Clause of Article II of the Constitution.”
Vargas said she would issue an opinion soon. The Trump administration argued that the plaintiffs in the case lacked standing.
In a Feb. 7
filing, the states said they had standing and suffered a particularized injury because “their sensitive bank account information and other sensitive financial data are stored on the [Bureau of Fiscal Services] payment systems that are now accessible to an expanded group of people at Treasury who are not authorized to view this information.”
Among other things, they alleged that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act and exceeded its authority.
Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, the plaintiffs said, “failed to account for legal obligations to protect such data and ignored the privacy expectations of federal fund recipients interacting with federal agencies, including States, veterans, retirees, and taxpayers.”
A similar case arose in Washington, where U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly signed off on a consent agreement between a group of unions and the administration. More specifically, she
allowed two special government employees associated with billionaire Elon Musk to access payment records in a “read only” manner.
Several other lawsuits have been filed over Musk’s DOGE, which Trump installed via
executive order on his inauguration day, Jan. 20. He did so by reorganizing and renaming the U.S. Digital Service, which was formed under former President Barack Obama. Trump renamed it the U.S. DOGE Service and set it up in pursuit of “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Amid various lawsuits, Trump
signed another order on Feb. 11
directing agencies to cooperate in reducing the federal workforce.
Reuters contributed to this report.
