Norman Eisen, cofounder of the democracy watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Fund, yesterday helped secure the sensitive financial information of US citizens within the Department of Treasury, where Elon Musk and his DOGE team were reportedly accessing the department’s computers. The DC lawyer and former diplomat worked on the team of lawyers representing several federal workers’ unions against the Bureau of Fiscal Service and the Treasury and its Secretary Scott Bessent in a complaint over the release of this personal and financial information.
The complaint, filed February 3, came after reports that Bessent granted access to the payment systems of the Treasury department to members of Musk’s DOGE team, including granting code-writing access to 25-year-old Marko Elez, who recently resigned from the agency due to resurfaced racist social media postings.
Yesterday, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly barred DOGE officials Tom Krause and Elez (prior to his resignation) to “as needed,” “read only” access to the materials, meaning they cannot make any changes to the payments system. The order also limits who can access these payment records within the Department of Treasury, locking out Musk himself from the system, according to Eisen.
After Kollar-Kotelly issued yesterday’s emergency order, we spoke to Eisen to learn more about what the order actually means for federal employees and US citizens.
What does this emergency order mean? What does it change?
The entire country was concerned that Elon Musk and his US DOGE service sitting over there in the White House were going to get in the Treasury and IRS systems and muck about in them. This order locks them out. It restricts use to internal Treasury personnel, and even then, sharply restricts them.
What’s stopping them from going to another agency and trying to get into the same information there? What prevents this from being like a game of Whack-A-Mole?
The Treasury payments system and the personal information at the IRS are uniquely centralized and vast. There is no way to achieve this same purpose by going elsewhere. That being said, we and our partners are litigating and will be litigating further to stop the whole unlawful enterprise that is the DOGE. So stand by for more.
Can you get any more specific on that last point?
No I cannot. Expect much, much more where this case came from.
What actual systems are holding them accountable to abide by this order? What if they don’t actually leave the Treasury system?
We haven’t yet seen an example of the Trump administration, as grossly unlawful as they are, going so far as to defy a court order. There are very serious consequences, including criminal contempt, for doing so.
