CREW requests records on DOGE

In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced the formation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy slated to lead it. DOGE was created to “pave the way for [Trump’s] Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” Upon taking office on January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order reorganizing and renaming the United States Digital Service as the United States DOGE Service within the Executive Office of the President.

However, DOGE continues to operate  seemingly unchecked, with no clarity on its structure, staffing, budget or operations, including whether it is following federal ethics and transparency laws or even acting within its legal authority. Questions also abound about Elon Musk’s role as the leader of DOGE. Trump announced that Musk, who has more than $3 billion in federal contracts and is reportedly working in the building next to the West Wing of the White House and using a White House email address, despite not having officially been named the administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service, would lead it.

The American public deserves to know what U.S. DOGE Service is, what it is doing and whether its actions, which could have an enormous effect on the American public, comply with the law. CREW has sued to force DOGE to abide by the Federal Advisory Committee Act or cease operating, has filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to gain insight into DOGE’s operations. Below is a summary of the FOIAs CREW has filed to date on DOGE-related matters:

In December 2024, CREW requested records from 62 government agencies, agency components and agency inspectors general pertaining to any communications that Musk, Ramaswamy or other individuals reportedly involved in DOGE had with agency employees. The requests also seek records pertaining to anyone who has an association with DOGE or the so-called “Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency” Caucus, a group established within Congress which plans to collaborate with DOGE. The agencies CREW requested records from include the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FEMA, the EPA, the FDA, the IRS and others.

In January 2025, CREW made expedited requests for records from the U.S. DOGE Service and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) related to communications between U.S. DOGE Service personnel and the Trump-Vance transition team, changes to U.S. DOGE Service operations and employment policies, the U.S. DOGE Service’s legal authority, U.S. DOGE Service’s work alongside other federal agencies and Congress and ethics commitments and financial disclosures by its personnel.

Following notice from OMB and U.S. DOGE Service that they’d grant expedited processing of CREW’s request, but “not guarantee” that it would be “completed by a date certain,” CREW wrote a letter to OMB and U.S. DOGE Service requesting that they process the expedited request before March 1, given the impending government shutdown if Congress does not pass a budget on March 14. It is in the public’s best interest to release the records before then, so that they know if DOGE is impacting federal spending practices before new appropriations are enacted, and can engage in the debates about whether and how the U.S. DOGE Service should be funded by the federal government.

Following public reporting in January 2025 that the U.S. DOGE Service allegedly attempted to exert pressure on federal judges, through the United States Marshals Service, to speed up the release of pardoned criminals and criminal defendants who were convicted or arrested for their roles in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, CREW filed a FOIA on communications between the U.S. Marshals Service and employees of U.S. DOGE Service. In addition, the FOIA seeks records related to acting U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia Ron Carter’s visits to judicial chambers in the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse, including communications related to the pardons or release of January 6th insurrectionists. 

On February 7, 2025 CREW requested records from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) related to USAID’s potential restructuring or closing, including communications between USAID and DOGE, communications about integrating USAID into the State Department and communications from the U.S. Marshals Service concerning any removals of persons from USAID facilities and offices. The public has an interest in understanding the current state of USAID, the process of its attempted shutdown, to what extent DOGE and Musk were involved in that process and whether any DOGE employees accessed classified information without the required security clearance.