Last Friday brought a major legal win for President Donald Trump’s administration, with the U.S. Supreme Court delivering two separate rulings in favor of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—the president’s hallmark initiative to modernize, streamline, and restructure the federal government. The twin decisions, both rendered on the Court’s emergency docket, reinforced the administration’s executive authority and delivered a major blow to progressive plaintiffs seeking to obstruct DOGE’s operational reach.
In American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO v. SSA, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court injunction that had blocked DOGE team members from accessing Social Security Administration records, citing concerns over privacy and lack of background checks. The unsigned order vacated U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander’s earlier decision, a ruling that had drawn support from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and had temporarily derailed the administration’s plans.
But the high court wasn’t convinced. Applying the four-factor stay test from Nken v. Holder, the Court ruled that the government had demonstrated likely success on the merits, faced irreparable harm from continued restrictions, and that the public interest supported lifting the freeze.
“SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” the Court wrote.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented, warning that the case involves highly sensitive data and a potentially dangerous erosion of privacy standards. Jackson’s dissent, joined by Sotomayor, noted that invasive record access by untrained personnel sets a troubling precedent.
Still, the unsigned majority decision cleared the way for DOGE to resume work immediately.
The second victory came in CREW v. DOGE, in which Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) had sought aggressive Freedom of Information Act discovery against DOGE, attempting to classify it as a federal agency subject to FOIA. The group demanded internal communications, personnel files, and even the chance to depose a key DOGE official, Gleason.
The Supreme Court just gave DOGE a green light to go fishing in Americans’ private data.
Your Social Security number. Your medical history. Your finances. All in the hands of unqualified, unelected — and unaccountable — officials.
Republicans are ready to dismantle our… https://t.co/Y5iBTE2YTn
— Katherine Clark (@WhipKClark) June 6, 2025
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper largely sided with CREW, granting extensive discovery. The D.C. Circuit refused to block that decision, prompting Solicitor General D. John Sauer to petition the Supreme Court.
In a succinct two-page order, the justices vacated parts of the lower court’s ruling, citing the constitutional importance of executive branch confidentiality and the need for judicial restraint when probing internal presidential deliberations. The Court directed the D.C. Circuit to reconsider the scope of discovery with an emphasis on preserving executive privilege.
“Concerns about the separation of powers… counsel judicial deference and restraint in the context of discovery regarding internal Executive Branch communications,” the Court noted.
The victories drew sharp partisan responses. While Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice praised the decisions as overdue pushback against “forum shopping” and activist judges, Democrats erupted. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) sounded the alarm over government overreach:
“Your Social Security number. Your medical history. Your finances. All in the hands of unqualified, unelected — and unaccountable — officials,” Clark warned.
On the ground, these rulings reaffirm the Trump administration’s broader strategy: using DOGE as the engine for a leaner, more centralized government apparatus, one increasingly resistant to the bureaucratic inertia and judicial constraints that defined Trump’s first term.
