Court Rejects AFL-CIO Demand For Temporary Restraining Order Against DOGE Access at DOL, HHS, CFPB– legalinsurrection.com

Court Rejects AFL-CIO Demand For Temporary Restraining Order Against DOGE Access at DOL, HHS, CFPB– legalinsurrection.com
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There are dozens of cases filed against Trump administration policies and procedures, particularly those centered around DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). These cases sometimes are couched in terms of privacy and sometimes around whether DOGE has authority to act. At their core, these are political cases by a vast Democrat apparatus established last fall to swamp the administration with lawsuits.

We are in the early stages, but there have been some troubling Temporary Restraining Orders issued by some court. TROs by nature are short term, but tying the hands of the executive branch from being able to run the executive branch is still serious, even if for only a week or two.

It’s hard to keep track of them all, so we will post about particularly signigicant decisions as they come down.

On February 14, 2025, Judge John H. Bates of the U.S. District Court in DC, rejected a request for a TRO that would have barred DOGE from access at the Department of Labor (“DOL”), the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”). It’s a very technical analysis, here’s some key parts of the Memorandum Opinion and Order (full embed below):

Labor unions, a think tank, and two nonprofits move to temporarily restrain [DOL, HHS, CFPB,] the United States Digital Service (now known as the United States DOGE Service), and the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization, from providing any person outside the three agencies—namely, DOGE personnel—with access to records systems containing personal information or data. As it said previously, the Court has serious concerns about the privacy concerns raised by this case, and those concerns are all the graver now that the data includes information on all Americans who rely on Medicare and Medicaid, as well as countless consumers. However, on the record before it, the Court does not conclude that plaintiffs are entitled to the extraordinary relief of a temporary restraining order.