What can go wrong?????

Judge approves Treasury DOGE team’s access to sensitive data systems

The ruling found that the Trump administration had shown it set up a process to appropriately vet and train the employees.

By Michael Stratford

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday cleared the way for the Treasury Department’s entire DOGE team to access the federal government’s sensitive data systems that manage trillions of dollars in payments each year.

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas lifted the final legal restriction barring four Treasury DOGE staffers from accessing Treasury’s payments infrastructure. Vargas relaxed her earlier order, finding the Trump administration had shown it set up a process to appropriately vet and train the employees.

The ruling marks a win for the Trump administration, which set off a political and legal firestorm earlier this year for granting access to the payment systems to Elon Musk’s DOGE operation. The payment systems contain sensitive financial data on tens of millions of American citizens and businesses.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and 18 other Democratic attorneys general had sued to block DOGE’s access to the systems.

In February, Vargas, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, largely sided with the states and prohibited DOGE staffers from accessing the system. At the time, she ruled that Treasury’s process for granting access to the sensitive data was so rushed and haphazard that it likely violated the law.

But the latest ruling on Tuesday significantly relaxes those restrictions, allowing Treasury DOGE team leader Tom Krause and DOGE members Linda Whitridge, Samuel Corcos, and Todd Newnam to access the agency’s payment and data systems.

Another DOGE staffer, Ryan Wunderly, had already been granted access to the data as part of a separate ruling by Vargas in April.

The decision came after the Trump administration submitted dozens of pages of declarations over the past several weeks from top Treasury officials that explained the steps the administration was taking to make sure that Treasury DOGE staffers are vetted, properly trained on data privacy and cybersecurity laws, and subject to guardrails to mitigate the risk that sensitive data will be exposed.

Still, Vargas did not go as far as the Trump administration had hoped in relaxing the restrictions.

She ordered Treasury to adhere to the protocols it promised for vetting and training DOGE employees. But Vargas said she wouldn’t require the agency to seek permission each time it wants to add new members to the DOGE team. She wrote in her order that “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.”