On Friday, the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal district court judge blocked the department of government efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Social Security Administration information on governmental computer systems.
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We’ll need to lay out some background on the case first. In the April 21 edition of my colleague Susie Moore’s legal column, she noted that among the new lawsuits that leftists have filed against Team Trump was the one from which this appeal sprang.
Moore wrote:
- ACLU v. Social Security Administration (regarding FOIA request directed to the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs for “records that will shed light on the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (‘DOGE’) access to data systems containing sensitive information maintained by Defendants U.S. Social Security Administration (‘SSA’) and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (‘VA’))
READ: The Evening Docket (April 21, 2025) – It’s a Doozy
Here’s some fleshing out of the case’s important details on the Maryland-based, federal district court judge’s injunction:
The judge concluded in her April decision that the plaintiffs, two labor unions and an advocacy group represented by Democracy Forward, were likely to succeed on their claim that the Social Security Administration’s decision to give DOGE access to millions of Americans’ confidential information violated the Privacy Act and a federal law governing the agency rulemaking process.
“T]he issue here is not the work that DOGE or the agency want to do. The issue is about how they want to do the work,” U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote in her 145-page decision. “The DOGE Team seeks access to the [personally identifiable information] that millions of Americans entrusted to SSA, and the SSA defendants have agreed to provide it. For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.”
She did allow DOGE team members to have access to redacted or anonymized information from the Social Security Administration, but only if they met certain conditions, such as receiving trainings and undergoing background investigations.
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Following Judge Hollander handing down her decision, the Trump administration asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to halt the injunction–but the court declined.
Now, they’ve filed with SCOTUS. In the filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that the government asserts there are several faults in the case–most glaring of all, that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to file it, and that U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander “did not have the legal authority to issue sweeping relief, which he said harmed “urgent federal priorities” and thwarted the executive branch’s functions,” according to CBS News.
RELATED: Federal Judge Poised to Prevent DOGE From Reviewing Financial Transactions
Sauer continued:
“The government cannot eliminate waste and fraud if district courts bar the very agency personnel with expertise and the designated mission of curtailing such waste and fraud from performing their jobs.”
This is a developing story, so RedState will provide updates as warranted.
This post was originally published on here
