Judge Orders Musk’s DOGE, Agency Staff to Testify in Lawsuit

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency must present a representative to testify under oath at a deposition about the structure of the office, its authority and its work, a judge has ruled.

US District Judge John Bates on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to produce witnesses for depositions, as well as produce records and answer questions in a lawsuit brought by labor unions and nonprofit groups. The suit seeks to block DOGE’s access to systems at three federal agencies: the Labor Department, Health and Human Service Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Bates, a George W. Bush appointee in Washington, overruled objections by the US Justice Department. He wrote that key facts related to the legal fight, including about DOGE’s structure and authority, “remain opaque.”

Read More: Judge Prods ‘Where Is Mr. Musk’ as DOGE Legal Challenges Build

This is the first order requiring the Trump administration to comply with plaintiffs’ demands for information — known as discovery — in a lawsuit about DOGE, according to Democracy Forward, the group representing the plaintiffs.

“The American people deserve to know what is happening behind closed doors and advancing to discovery is an important step in this case,” said Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Judges have pushed DOJ lawyers for details about Musk’s role, what DOGE is and what DOGE-affiliated employees are doing inside federal agencies as President Donald Trump presses ahead with sweeping — and legally contested — cuts to federal spending and the government workforce.

Other judges are considering similar fact-finding requests by plaintiffs in cases contesting DOGE’s access to agency records and the constitutionality of Musk’s position within the administration.

Bates imposed some limits. He said the plaintiffs weren’t entitled to information about DOGE’s presence beyond the three agencies and that they could ask about DOGE’s access to individuals’ personal information, but not trade secrets or other confidential business records.

Finally, the judge gave the plaintiffs’ lawyers eight hours total to question representatives from DOGE and the three agencies, instead of the three-and-a-half hours per deposition they requested.

Bates previously denied the plaintiffs’ bid for an immediate temporary restraining order restricting DOGE’s access to the three agencies, finding the plaintiffs hadn’t shown at this early stage that DOGE-affiliated staff were legally barred from seeing the data.

The White House just this week revealed the identity of DOGE’s administrator after disclosing in a court filing that it wasn’t Musk, notwithstanding Trump’s repeated comments about putting the billionaire in charge.

The case is AFL-CIO v. Department of Labor, 25-cv-339, US District Court, District of Columbia.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Elizabeth Wasserman, Steve Stroth

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