Editor’s note: In part one of Liberty Nation News’ DOGE series, we examined how the USDS was created by President Barack Obama and has been funded by Congress for the last ten years, putting the lie to the argument that the agency is unconstitutional. In this second part, we tackle the tsunami of legal cases and rhetoric being levied currently.
If you can’t beat them, litigate them. It was a process of legal warfare that failed so spectacularly against Donald Trump’s bid for re-election, and yet the bevy of claims presently surrounding DOGE and its efforts to reduce government waste appear cut from the same cloth. What challenges are being made, and will they pass judicial muster?
Defeating the Beast
The broadest cases and accusations being leveled against the US DOGE Service (USDS) claim that its existence is fundamentally illegal. As discussed at length in part one of this series, if it were illegal, it would have been illegal for the last ten years without a whisper of complaint. However, it seems critics are falling into a trap that Milton Friedman warned of: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
So are critics making that mistake? Consider the words of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who said, “This administration stands for corruption. And what Elon Musk is doing in Washington is all about expanding corruption. He’s not the enemy of corruption. He’s the agent of corruption.” And then there is Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), who spoke many words without nailing down what he saw the issue as:
“I think we need to be doing a lot more oversight in terms of what DOGE is doing. And that’s part of the reason that a lot of my Democratic colleagues and I actually had to go to a lot of these institutions and departments over the past week. We’ve been to USAID, we’ve been to the Department of Education, The Department of Treasury, because as we reach out to the administration, what we’re getting back is crickets.”
He continued stirring the pot without naming specifics, saying, “We should all be concerned about the fact that Elon Musk and his small team of, uh, DOGE, uh, you know, coders have absolutely zero oversight. There’s no one looking over the work they’re doing to make sure that, of course, there’s no conflict of interest, but that it’s also being done in the right way.”
Frost concluded, “The president needs to cease this entire DOGE operation. If he wants to make drastic cuts to the federal government, if he wants to move forward with this project 2025 agenda, he needs to come to the United States Congress.”
And, finally, here is the rub: oversight and congressional involvement. Opponents of DOGE appear to be coalescing around one grand argument that it has become a “rogue agency.” And naturally, as per Raskin’s screed, this is because Trump and Musk are the epitome of corruption. But does the accusation hold water?
Biden and DOGE
Natalie Alms of NextGov/FWC wrote an in-depth article in November last year about the uncertain future USDS faces and described the many transitions it has undergone. She highlighted:
“When the Biden administration took over at the start of 2021, they switched the USDS leadership position to a presidential appointee role, as it was during the Obama administration. The White House also added some new political roles to USDS — dubbed senior advisors for delivery — to detail to White House policy councils, such as the Domestic Policy Council.”
So, if the USDS is overtly political and free from the very specific oversight that the Democrat lawmakers now demand, it is because President Joe Biden changed it. There was a deafening silence from the same politicos at the time and certainly no lawsuits to demand congressional involvement.
Attacks Mount
Among the many actions taken against the president’s agenda since his inauguration are:
A 14-state suit alleging the power given to Musk by Trump is unconstitutional.
A federal judge ordering that the foreign aid freeze put in place be lifted.
A district court judge extending a previous order barring Trump from placing more than 2,000 USAID employees on leave.
These and two dozen other actions against the cost-cutting endeavors of the administration are currently being argued or prepared. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Congress is also seeking to get in on the circus.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) hosted a protest against DOGE in which he declared, “We cannot allow Elon Musk and a small group of people to secretly, behind closed doors, take away our privacy, take away our dollars, take away everything we have.” One could be mistaken for thinking he was discussing the usual business of government. But a protest rally from one of DC’s most powerful figures hints at a lack of confidence in a positive legal outcome.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law.”
For all the heated discussion that Trump will potentially defy court rulings against him, what's missing is that -- in a similar manner to former President Joe Biden's efforts at student loan forgiveness -- these orders present a road map for how to work with - or around - legal issues, to strengthen the initial action. While there may be hurdles, each challenge provides a compass reading for where DOGE will head next and how the organization will avoid similar blocks.
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Part 3 in this DOGE series will look to the future of DOGE and what happens when it expires.
