But is it legal? Musk’s DODE strikes agencies before the judges can rule.

On February 7, 2025By Littum

As head of the newly created government -efficiency department, Elon Musk and his team have spent the first three weeks of President Donald Trump’s new administration by turning Washington upside down.

Dog’s goal is to radically cut the federal government: Mr. Musk says he thinks he can find $ 2 trillion in savings by depriving waste, closing agencies, selling real estate and dismissing a huge part of the public workforce.

But is it legal for this brand new unit within the president’s executive office to do all that on its own at a main tempo?

Why did we write this

The US Constitution provides control and balance as a significant marker of a healthy democracy. This system faces a test as a new administration pushes the boundaries of executive power.

In some ways, the billionaire seems to be following the same playbook as when he took over Twitter, which he renamed X. He reduced his workforce by almost 80% starting with an E email with the subject line “Fork in the Road”, then the company Decrease in stock value and so many users quit even when the social platform continues under new policies.

Transforming a privately owned company is still far from revising the federal government. While many Americans believe that Washington’s bureaucracy is ineffective and even wasted, government programs also have their strong supporters. And in addition to policy, there are far more legal restrictions on reinventing public institutions than private, for-profit companies.

Donald Trump sits at his desk in the White House Oval Office with an American flag in the background and signs a performing order.

President Donald Trump signs an executive order to create the Department of Government Efficiency in the White House Oval Office, January 20, 2025, in Washington. As litigation challenges the recent doge movements, the judges weigh in.

The structure of the US government, which is enshrined in both the Constitution and the statutes, makes changes much more difficult to achieve. The courts are already getting involved.

On Thursday afternoon, a federal judge in Boston temporarily stopped President Trump’s federal staff outcoming program, although the effect of Doge Ultimatum’s flash means that thousands of desks are already empty. Earlier on Thursday, another federal judge in DC Doge workers blocked from accessing sensitive state departmental registers and payment systems.

Clashes over computers

Redirected via Executive Order From the US digital service, DOGE is technically allowed with access to the federal government’s computer systems. But clashes have been outbreaked by the kind of information that DOGE workers have sought and how they can use – or abuse – it.

For example, at the Ministry of Finance, for example, DODE employees sought access to systems used to process trillion of dollars of payments each year. These systems include names, addresses and social security number. As part of a current trial, a federal judge on Thursday limited the organization’s access to these Treasury data.

While other agencies have been more cooperative – such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where Dogge is looking for evidence of benefits fraud – the organization on dice is legal ground when it comes to access to sensitive information that the federal government possesses.

Does “Roughshod” run over Congress’s power in purse?

The Constitution gives Congress broad powers of how federal means are used. DOGE AND TRUMP ACCOUNT HAVE tested the boundaries of these powers.

One week into the new administration, the US Office of Management and Budget issued a memo that ordered a break on all federal grants and loan payments pending an Executive Branch Review. Nonprofit organizations responded with litigation seeking to block the memo, questioning the Trump Administration’s legal authority for unilateral porching funding approved by Congress.

OMB canceled the memo days later, although administrative officials said its review of federal expenses will continue. The lawsuits have continued as well, and on Monday a federal judge in Washington, DC, temporarily blocked the OMB from the implementation of grants to Freeze Memo.

“Defendant” Actions in this case potentially drives Ruhod over a “Bulwark of the Constitution” “by interfering in Constitutional Mandated Power of Congress, wrote Judge Lorena Alikhan in her order.

The executive branch can block some congress grants. In certain situations, the president can “raise” (withhold) funds approved by Congress. This power was slowed down after assault by President Richard Nixon, and the Trump administration may now try to scratch some of them.

Claiming power to close entire agencies

DOGE and Trump administration have also tried to restructure and maybe even eliminate entire federal agencies.

Earlier this week, Doge staff from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) told not to get to work the next day. The development agency, which administers billions of dollars in civilian foreign aid around the world, was fed “into Woodchipper,” Mr. Musk on social media. When he claimed Mr. Trump’s full support, he said he “shut it down.”

DOGE employees have also undergone operations at the Department of Education, such as Mr. Trump promised to close during his campaign. Like USAID, the department was established and funded by Congress.

People gather to protest outside the Office of Personal Management headquarters after Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency was indicted for supervision of the Agency in Washington, February 2, 2025.

It should be the end of the conversation, says legal experts.

“These are units created by Congress, with functions defined by Congress, (and) Budgets approved by Congress,” said Don Kettl, a professor emeritus and former dean at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. “The president cannot unilaterally change any of them.”

“You are fired”

An important feature of DOGE and Trump administration’s degradation efforts have been attempted job cuts.

Doge’s recent e email “Fork in the Road” went out to 2 million federal employees. The administration also offered “vulnerable resignation” to employees at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. About 40,000 workers (about 2% of the federal workforce) have taken the offer so far, press secretary at the White House Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.

The Ministry of Justice has now also ordered and obtained a list of the Federal Bureau of Investigation employees who worked with cases related to Mr. Trump and January 6, 2021, which stormed the US capital.

Critics have questioned the legality of such actions and warned about security issues that may arise with them. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the names of some CIA employees had been listed in an unclassified e email sent to officials on the Office of Personal Management.

A group of anonymous FBI agents have filed litigation Challenge of the legality of such a “excursion” that seeks to protect personal information. They claim that Trump administration’s efforts to identify specific employees violate the federal privacy law and put them at risk.

Is it legal? Civil Service Law has provisions that protect career associations from political interference. Most federal workers can only be fired if their performance or offense is documented. Even then, employees have rights to proper process and appeal.

Lyopholes and “Fog of War”

There are possible loopholes. The executive branch has the authority to put employees on paid leave. Agency managers can incentive employees to retire or retire early.

“You have people who stand up to say that this is not (legal), but it is difficult” to challenge certain specific actions, says Dr. Kettl.

Litigation to protest such dismissals requires the applicant to clearly show how the challenged policy would harm them, for example. But it can be difficult if a policy has not taken effect yet.

Goodofredo A.Vásquez/AP/File

A pile of characters when spelled Twitter was removed and replaced by Elon Musk’s new name for the company, X, in San Francisco, July 24, 2023. His Doge effort with the Trump Administration can mirror his style with sweeping change by that Social media company.

“There is a lot of fog of war. We are not quite sure what the details are, ”says Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University School of Law Professor. “It makes it very difficult to assess the legality of very specific things.”

The Trump administration can even hope to tee up legal matches on specific questions. E.g. Can litigation be a way for the administration to convince the courts that the president’s ship’s power should be expanded.

Comes battle for control and balance

Over the coming months, federal courts could hear litigation on the president’s ability to disrupt congress grants, restructure federal agencies or fire or buy certain federal employees.

The framework of the Constitution designed the nation’s core management document so that each branch is intended to control the other. The judicial branch could emerge as it did in the first Trump administration, as a potent control of the executive branch. But the Republican Majority Congress will push back against the leader of their party, especially when Mr. Trump has shown a fair row against those showing disloyalty?

“The balance of balance is defined by how they are performed,” says Dr. Kettl. “It’s not like there’s a red line you cross, and once you’ve crossed, it triggers some actions,” he adds. “The only action the Constitution gives is that another branch controls the force.”

In short, the constitutional separation of power exists only if the respective branches of government intervene in order to ensure that power is separate and balanced.

Two weeks after the second Trump administration, the jury is out.

In most cases, Republican lawmakers support Mr. Trump. Last month, a congressman in North Carolina introduced a bill To eliminate the Department of Education. (A congressional action would be the constitutional way of doing it.)

Days after OMB Grant-Freeze Memo came out was the house’s speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, described it As “a use of common sense” that “would be harmless in the end.”

Senator Kevin Cramer, a Republican in North Dakota, took a different view. Mr. Trump “tested his authority,” Senator Cramer said in late January. While supporting review and reassessment of public spending, he added that it would be a “greater test of power separation.”