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President Donald Trump gives remarks during an event celebrating the 2024 Stanley Cup Champion the Florida Panthers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, February 3, 2025 (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).
The Trump administration is imploring a federal judge to “immediately” dissolve a court order allowing only “civil servants” to access a “vast swath” of the Treasury Department’s systems while prohibiting the same access to any “political appointees,” arguing that the order is “unconstitutional” and violates the doctrine of separation of powers.
Claiming that there “cannot be a basis for distinguishing between civil servants and political appointees,” attorneys for the DOJ said the ruling even appears to cover Senate-approved Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“This is a remarkable intrusion on the Executive Branch that is in direct conflict with Article II of the Constitution, and the unitary structure it provides,” the DOJ wrote in the 11-page emergency motion responding to the order. “Basic democratic accountability requires that every executive agency’s work be supervised by politically accountable leadership, who ultimately answer to the President.”
The administration went on to claim that the court lacked the authority to issue such a sweeping order and should not take effect.
“A federal court, consistent with the separation of powers, cannot insulate any portion of that work from the specter of political accountability,” the filing continued. “No court can issue an injunction that directly severs the clear line of supervision Article II requires. Because the Order on its face draws an impermissible and anti-constitutional distinction, it should be dissolved immediately.”
The order the DOJ is targeting was issued in the predawn hours of Saturday morning by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, while the DOJ’s request was directed to Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, who will be the presiding judge going forward.
Should the court fail to dissolve Engelmayer’s “markedly broad injunction,” the DOJ is asking that Vargas at least clarify or modify the order “so as to avoid its most direct constitutional and practical hazards.”
“There is no sound reason that it should extend to Treasury’s leadership, who are charged with overseeing and administering the Department without interruption,” the DOJ wrote. “To the extent the Order applies to senior political appointees at Treasury, it is an extraordinary and unprecedented judicial interference with a Cabinet Secretary’s ability to oversee the Department he was constitutionally appointed to lead. Interfering with those basic functions, even for a day, will cause irreparable harm to the government.”
Engelmayer’s order came after a 19-state coalition filed a lawsuit seeking to stop a group of special employees from the newly formed Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive Treasury Department data. The complaint argued that the president’s grant of access to Musk and others was “unlawful and unconstitutional” and showed that Trump had “failed to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.”
The lawsuit further asserted that DOGE’s access left the massive payment system vulnerable to hacking and other possible means of manipulation.
On top of being prohibited from accessing “any Treasury Department payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees,” political appointees and “special government employees” were ordered to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.”
The DOJ asserted that the only DOGE employee who accessed the system was Thomas Krause, who filed a statement with the court saying he only had “over the shoulder access” to the Treasury’s systems, meaning he never had “direct or personal access” to payment data, but could see information accessed by fully credentialed employees.
The outrage expressed by the DOJ was echoed by Trump and his supporters.
Discussing the case on Sunday, Trump told reporters that “No judge should frankly be allowed to make that kind of a decision, it’s a disgrace.”
Musk posted on X, previously Twitter, that Engelmayer was “a corrupt judge protecting corruption,” adding, “He needs to be impeached NOW!.”
Both parties will be in court on Friday for a hearing on the matter before Vargas.
