NEW YORK –  In a ruling issued late Tuesday, a federal judge in New York granted more members of the U.S. DOGE Service access to sensitive financial records held by the Treasury Department.

What You Need To Know

  • In a ruling issued late Tuesday, a federal judge in New York granted more members of the U.S. DOGE Service access to sensitive financial records held by the Treasury Department

  • U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas modified the preliminary injunction she had put in place Feb. 21 and opted to allow four more DOGE staffers permission to access the Bureau of Fiscal Services data

  • Tuesday's decision xpanded taccess to Thomas Krause, Linda Whitridge, Samuel Corcos and Todd Newnam.

  • But the judge stopped short of lifting all of the restrictions, saying that any additional DOGE team members needing access to the records must undergo the same training, vetting and mitigation procedures, as well as be supervised by Treasury Department officials

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas modified the preliminary injunction she had put in place Feb. 21 and opted to allow four more DOGE staffers permission to access the Bureau of Fiscal Services data. The bureau falls within the Treasury Department and oversees payment processing for federal agencies and manages the public debt.

Vargas had previously ordered the Treasury Department to certify that the DOGE team members had undergone the “proper training” for the sensitive financial data plus explain the vetting, security clearances and mitigation procedures in place to reduce the risk of improper disclosures. 

On April 11, the judge granted one member of the Treasury DOGE team — Ryan Wunderly — access, noting that 54 pages of information provided by the Trump administration addressed the plaintiffs’ concerns of “arbitrary and capricious conduct” by the DOGE team. 

“In particular, the declarations made clear that Wunderly had been through the same vetting, clearance and training procedures required of all other Treasury employees provided with access to the BFS payment systems,” the judge wrote in Tuesday’s decision, which expanded this access to other staffers: Thomas Krause, Linda Whitridge, Samuel Corcos and Todd Newnam.

The Trump administration now won’t need to go to court each time it wants to add a new DOGE name to the approved list, the judge ruled. 

“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. 

But she stopped short of lifting all of the restrictions, saying that any additional DOGE team members needing access to the records must undergo the same training, vetting and mitigation procedures, as well as be supervised by Treasury Department officials. 

Tuesday’s order came in response to the legal challenge filed in February by a coalition of 19 attorneys general, including New York Attorney General Letitia James. 

James said in a statement at the time the suit was filed that Elon Musk, senior adviser to the president, and DOGE “have no authority to access Americans’ private information and some of our country’s most sensitive data.”