May 21 (UPI) — The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to block proceedings on a case looking to get information on the Department of Government Efficiency.
In an application to stay the orders of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking documents about DOGE under the Freedom of Information Act, Solicitor General John Sauer wrote that DOGE is exempt from such requests.
“The U.S. DOGE Service is a presidential advisory body within the Executive Office of the President. The President, in various executive orders, has tasked USDS with providing recommendations to him and to federal agencies on policy matters that the President has deemed important to his agenda,” Sauer wrote. “Given those advisory functions, USDS is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.”
The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, filed a lawsuit against DOGE in February, which described DOGE as “a cadre of largely unidentified actors, whose status as government employees is unclear, controlling major government functions with no oversight.”
The CREW suit asked for DOGE to comply with its FOIA requests “and promptly disclose the requested records.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. ordered in May that DOGE must provide the requested information.
CREW responded to the request from Sauer to the Supreme Court with a statement Wednesday that said “While DOGE continues to attempt to fight transparency at every level of justice, we look forward to making our case that the Supreme Court should join the District Court and Court of Appeals in allowing discovery to go forward.”