New York Judge Paul Engelmayer on Saturday issued an injunction against the Trump Administration that says no political appointee — including the Secretary of the Treasury — may view or analyze the Department of Treasury data.
The decision by the federal judge throws a monkey wrench into DOGE — the project by the Trump Administration that is known as the Department of Government Efficiency.
Elon Musk is in charge of the project to ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse, and he has Trump’s permission to do so with his DOGE team of analysts.
But he doesn’t have the permission of the judge who agreed with 19 Democratic attorneys general who sued in federal court to keep the Trump Administration from finding out where the taxpayer dollars actually go.
Apparently, it’s not Trump who runs the executive branch. It’s federal judges. According to the Englemayer’s logic, even the president may not look at the Treasury data.
“The judge cites no law or logic to support this unprecedented order, because it defies both. The judge’s ruling is, in essence, that Scott Bessent simply occupies a ceremonial position without real power, like the King of England,” commented Charlie Kirk, a Trump supporter and leader of the Turning Point USA organization. “It forbids the elected government from accessing information about budget and finances. Instead, only the permanent, deep-state government can know what’s being spent. It means Scott Bessent’s subordinates have far more power than Scott Bessent does.”
Engelmayer, appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote in his decision that anyone appointed by Trump who has accessed information from the Treasury Department must immediately destroy all copies immediately.
Bessent on Thursday said, “There’s a lot of misinformation. These are Treasury employees [working with DOGE]. There’s no tinkering with the system, they have read-only access, can make no changes.”
Musk wrote his own explanation on X:
“To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
“- Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.
“- All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!
“- The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.
“The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!
“Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.
“When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!!
“This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.”
Are we still pretending these courts are legit?
That proves that the US Treasury along with the Feral Reserve Banking system are truly criminal enterprises.
This.
Also, it is worth the time to impeach this judge.
Hopefully Bondi asks for an expiated ruling from the Supremes asap.
Following the logic provided by Judge Paul Engelmayer, who was appointed by President Obama, the good judge himself has no authority to judicate this or any case and should recuse himself post haste.
To be fair, from the perspective of the permanent state it is outrageous that an elected by the citizens government would look into, and disclose, how public monies are spent. Who, exactly, do the common citizens think they are? Questioning their betters who run the operation?
Looks like Biden didn’t preemptively pardon anywhere near enough of his Washington cronies and peers!
Just when I thought that maybe I had already seen the height of stupidity that could be reached by someone who is attempting to sabotage a duly-elected president.
How much of that fraudulent $50B/year goes into Engelmayer’s and his friends’ pockets? That line from Shakespeare, “Me thinks that thou protesteth too much.” ??? Attempts at usurpation by leftist judges (or anyone…) like this need to be censured and fired and prosecuted. Rid the U.S. of corruption.
Insane. Take it to SCOTUS.
Do you really want Elon and his high-school coterie poking around in your personal and financial data? Your SSN, your bank details, your Social Security info? No, I didn’t think so.
Doesn’t he have two failing companies to run, and by the way, who’s taking care of his 12 kids? X Æ A-Xii, Techno Mechanicus, Exa Dark Sideræl and all of the others must really be missing their daddy.
What makes you think the average Federal Worker is any more trustworthy?
Tell you what, take a look around your workplace. How many of your co-workers would you trust with that data? I bet the number approaches zero.
.
But… oh… a Federal employee, they are absolute paragons of virtue. Any attempt on their part to even consider doing anything unethical will cause them to become violently ill. Not.
.
Get the F real here dog. The Federal Government hires on plenty of people right out of school, but you do not seem to have a problem with that. Why a problem now?
Well whidby the politicians have been poking around stealing us blind. At this point who gives a shit. I got nothing to hide. Do you ??
I want Elon and the kids poking around in the books of government agencies finding out just exactly how billions if not trillions of taxpayer money are being handed to leftist crooks and their cronies.
The world already has the information from theft of multiple databases that was promised your information was safe.
I’ll take whiz-kids with IQs north of 140 versus DEI hires. Many are college age and proven capabilities. USAID paid out over 300 million dollars to build a cement factory in Gaza used by Hamas to construct their terror tunnels into Israel. Money dispersed without any documentation…no coding..no way to track. I think the main fear is unearthing how much USAID was a slush fund for your fellow travelers.
Whidbey,
You’re intelligent enough to know that Musk isn’t looking into the average Americans personal information. Besides, if he wanted to do that he’d find that information and a lot more available online.
Most enlightening here WTD.
You wail about DOGE auditing the executive branch and hype it like the end of civilization as we know it, (it is not). Yet not once have you condemned ANY of the excesses uncovered. You have not stopped to wonder if $50Billion/year in SSA payments to people we know nothing about isn’t putting the continued operation of social security at risk. No instead you simply bemoan the looming insolvency and demand we pay more taxes. You seem okay with sending $1million to China for climate change or fund sex change operations in Guatemala.
Why is that??? Why are you unable to condemn the abuse of hard-earned taxpayer funds for frivolous agenda driven items? We should all be in agreement that the American taxpayer should not be on the hook for these excesses. We can argue about the process, but the waste we see should be universally condemned. I wonder why that is not the case….
Ignore the judge dislike the Biden administration did and do what you need to do. It’s the executive branch and the chief operating officer i.e. President Trump is the boss.
I’m sick of all this winning!
I know, right!
I mean Trump has… what about 5 of his EOs stopped and/or stalled. Out of 250+.
Man, if I were President Trump, I would consider myself a complete and total failure.
I can’t wait for Trump to execute his vision for a Sovereign Wealth Fund that expropriates ALASKA LIQUID NATURAL GAS by Executive Order. You must have missed that announcement he made during his joint press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister. YES, GIRLS and BOYS — he said he’s RAIDING a proposed revenue source of the ALASKA PERMANENT FUND
Let’s see how long you continue to applaud this country’s rapid descent into Fascism after he signs THAT E.O.?
Chari, I am generally a polite writer preferring to make a factual argument. However your little diatribe here leaves me baffled and almost tempted to be unkind, so please explain this:
“expropriates AK LNG” How so exactly?
I read the EO and it lifts all the burdensome restrictions placed on Alaska so WE can produce our own natural gas, finally building a LNG pipeline and then sell the gas to Japan and other interested nations. The royalties and income received will, just like all others increase the PFD.
It is further clear that you have no idea about fascism, especially as you respond to an article, which describes a NY judge making a ruling not based in law, but like a little dictator makes it up as he goes and demands that his opinion is the only one to obey.
PS none of us are “Girls and Boys”, but mature adults with a rational brain. You should try it some time
Cute Sebastian!
If this is “winning” in your world, then I do NOT want any part of your flavor of “democracy”. This judge made up a ruling out of thin air, without any laws or rulings to back it up and ignores centuries of precedence of former cabinet members running their departments. Somehow it was okay for Janet Yellen to direct the department, as the Biden administration pleased but not for Sec. Besset….please.
You do remember that this is a government of co-equal branches not the tyranny of the judiciary. Furthermore one wonders whether or not those 19 AG have actual standing to file such a motion as DOGE is an executive branch house-cleaning and does no affect any other branch of government.
We are not whining. We are whistling as we are shining up our Ax handles. Lots of us.
Sounds like Judge Paul Englemeyer could be one of the recipients of some of the $1B per week of fraud waste and abuse payments. Along with “the Big Guy.” Hope they fix the glitch.
I’d like to fix the glitch
Clearly this judge is on the take. Time for a royal flush. Literally
This is FUBAR as the acronym goes! So if anything is out of wack who is in charge of noticing it, investigating it and if necessary fixing or correcting it? Nobody I guess. Our tax dollars at work.
So obvious Judge is hiding something
No one will ever, and I mean NEVER beat the “deep state”. They’re too entrenched with too much money and influence to be conquered. Trump tried utilizing shock & awe by showing us plebs where our money goes but it’s just not enough. Nothing will change because what we’re talking about is the actual heart of it all, the apparatus that operates our country.
And do you think we have it worse then those who lived in the Soviet Union? Maybe we do, but we only insure our defeat by giving up. I suggest you do not give in to your worse angels and be weak like prey.
So how about this judge Paul. None of us are going to pay our taxes.
Curious how the Judge could not actually cite a legal reason for stopping the EO.
Perhaps the treasury secretary should simply ignore the judge’s preliminary injunction. The Judiciary has no enforcement officials or enforcement authority. When enforcement is needed it is the executive branch of the govt that uses federal
Law enforcement officials to enforce court orders. Last I heard Pam Bondi is the Federal atty General and one of Trump’s appointees will soon be in charge of the FBI. All they have to do is refuse to be the lackey of a Judge who grossly ignores the separation
of powers.
In the meantime the administration will appeal the judge’s decision and the Supreme Court will
Promptly reverse the judge. Game over!
Interesting how all leftists are dead set against accountability for government spending. The leftist mantra often seems to be “no one is above the law.” You know what? FEDERAL JUDGES ARE NOT ABOVE THE LAW!
You str right but our Executive Branch has the power to arrest them !
Simple arrest this judge for treason! Put him on trial by the Congress !
Oh also who are the 19 AG’s ? They to need to be arrested also! The Bar Associations in those states need also be disbanded & outlawed !
3 separate branches of Government.Thank you for your opinion Judicial but just like Biden we chose to ignore you!
The Judicial Empire Strikes Back!
Fortunately, it appears that their corporate media Death Star has been mortally wounded.
The American people are pissed. We are also done playing games.
The Judiciary has subject matter over court rules not accounting. The judge doesn’t appear to have subject matter jurisdiction over accounting principles nor the legislative branch. Political lawsuits can be handled outside of court and exclusively with a Congressional inquiry as “the court of justice” in this matter. The commander in Chief can invoke a military enforcement of the republic and the Constitution they have taken an oath to defend. MIlitary Court rules are stunningly different I suppose. A Congressional inquiry could look at the law school curricula materials in the Judge’s alma mater constitutional studies courses. Was it updated or unique in interpretation? It is hard to see the judiciary branch delimiting both the executive and legislative branches.
This is a false claim: “NY judge says not even Treasury Sec. Bessent may see Treasury Dept. data.”
Wrong, SA. The language of the order is very specific and names both Trump and Bessent as defendants, and goes on to say that “political appointees, special government employees, and any government employee detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department access to Treasury Department payment systems or any other data maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information.”
From Fox News, Federalist senior legal correspondent Margot Cleveland said, “The judge’s order is rightly being attacked as, at worse, barring the secretary of the Treasury from accessing the Treasury Department’s databases and at best, at being hopelessly ambiguous and confusing.”