- Three lawsuits are challenging Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency on transparency grounds.
- The suits claim DOGE violates the 1972 law requiring public meetings and balanced perspectives.
- One suit also claims tech executives dominate DOGE’s membership, violating balance requirements.
Three lawsuits from progressive organizations filed in federal court today, just minutes after President Trump was sworn into office, allege that Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency violates the transparency requirements of a 1972 law.
All three lawsuits argue that DOGE should be considered a federal advisory committee. Under the 1972 FACA law at the center of the suits, such a committee must represent balanced perspectives, hold all meetings publicly, and keep minutes, among other requirements.
One lawsuit brought by Democracy Forward, a left-leaning legal advocacy organization, calls DOGE a “shadow operation led by unelected billionaires” that risks making recommendations affecting millions of Americans without proper transparency or oversight.
The second lawsuit, filed by the public interest firm National Security Counselors, focuses on the legal technicalities of DOGE’s formation and operation, emphasizing the lack of proper advisory committee procedures.
That suit, filed by Jerald Lentini, Joshua Erlich, and National Security Counselors, names, among others, Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Donald Trump as defendants, and claims the experiences of two applicants to the DOGE committee show a lack of balance in its membership.
Lentini and Erlich, both lawyers with histories of representing federal employees and advocating for government accountability, applied to join DOGE but were never contacted.
The third suit was brought by a trio of plaintiffs: the progressive think tank Public Citizen, the nonprofit State Democracy Defenders Fund, and the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing around 800,000 federal and D.C. employees. Their suit alleges that DOGE’s members “do not represent the interests of everyday Americans.” The three plaintiffs sent a letter to Trump’s transition co-chairs asking for representation on DOGE and claiming that the commission violates FACA, according to a press release.
In November, Musk said in a post on X that all of DOGE’s actions “will be posted online for maximum transparency.”
However, the lawsuits each claim that much of DOGE’s communication happens on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, citing both news reports and a public blog post from a former DOGE member.
“This is not about sour grapes. This is not people suing because they were not picked,” said Kel McClanahan, an attorney at National Security Counselors, in a comment to Business Insider. “This is people suing because nobody like them was picked, and as a result nobody will be in the room to make sure DOGE understands the critical perspectives they would provide.”
McClanahan said that while everyone agrees government spending is wasteful, DOGE risks making shortsighted cuts without understanding federal workers’ essential roles. “Government work is not corporate work, and any recommendations made without that perspective are doomed to fail,” he said.
Representatives for Musk, Trump, Vought, and DOGE’s counsel William McGinley did not respond to a request for comment from BI.
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