May 28 (UPI) — A federal judge ruled that the Department of Government Efficiency can now access a U.S. Treasury payment system that distributes trillions of dollars in federal money.
On Tuesday night, Judge Jeannette Vargas of New York’s U.S. Southern District signed off to permit four DOGE employees access to the Bureau of Fiscal Services, which acts as the federal government’s “checkbook,” so long as proper training procedures were in place.
The judge added she will no longer require the Trump administration to seek court approval before it grants access to other DOGE reps.
“There is little utility in having this Court function as Treasury’s de facto human resources officer each time a new team member is onboarded,” Vargas wrote in her ruling.
It signals a win for DOGE, created by President Donald Trump and helemd by Elon Musk, after it attempted to gain access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment infrastructure and a number of other government systems, and after more than a dozen state attorneys general sued the Trump administration to block DOGE access to government systems which ultimately failed.
Vargas initially upheld the ban, saying there was public interest to protect personal and banking info in the fiscal service bureau which is run by a small number of civil servants, and asked the White House to alleviate ongoing concerns by giving details on his officials will handle sensitive data and a DOGE chain-of-command rundown.
“Taking the time to adequately mitigate potential security concerns and properly onboard members to engage in this work outweighs the Defendants’ immediate need to access and redevelop Treasury systems,” Vargas previously wrote.
Meanwhile, DOGE has gained unprecedented access to no less than seven sensitive federal agency databases, including those of the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration.
