Cnn
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A federal judge refused Tuesday to temporarily block Elon Musk and his ministry of government efficiency to access federal data systems in a series of executive branch agencies.
The decision of the American district judge Tanya CHUTKAN is an early blow to the efforts of a group of attorneys of the Democratic State to Musk and DOGE hamstrings while they are making efforts to upset the workforce Federal.
But the judge also indicated that she was skeptical about the statements of the Trump administration on Musk and his powers in Doge. The access of Musk and DOGE to closely kept government data – including sensitive information to which it has collected and to the American public – has become a battlefield in the legal fight against the efforts of the Trump administration to reshape the Federal bureaucracy.
The Attorney General continued Musk last week, arguing that his role in government is a violation of the Constitution’s appointment clause, which gives presidents the power to appoint civil servants who must then be confirmed by the Senate.
States had asked Chutkan to temporarily prohibit Musk and DOGE from accessing government information systems at the office of staff management, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Health and Services social, the Ministry of Energy, the Department of Transport and the Ministry of Commerce.
They also wanted the judge to block musk and the Doges to dismiss or place on the involuntary driving of all the employees of these agencies.
But Chutkan said that the States had not shown “that they will undergo imminent and irreparable damage in the absence of a temporary prohibition order”.
“The court knows that Doge’s unpredictable actions have led to considerable uncertainty and confusion for the complainants and many of their agencies and residents,” she wrote in the 10-page decision. “It remains” uncertain “when and how the catalog of state programs that complainants identify will suffer.”
CHUTKAN continued by saying that even if the more important case of states against Musk is “strong”, their arguments at this stage of the dispute were not good enough to satisfy the standard which must be respected to justify emergency measures of the court.
“The complainants raise a complaint as a colorizable meeting clause with serious implications. Musk was not appointed by the president or confirmed by the American Senate, as being constitutionally required for officers who exercise “an important authority in accordance with the laws of the United States”, she wrote. “But even a strong argument of merit cannot guarantee a temporary prohibition order at this stage.”
Chutkan, of the Washington Federal District Court, DC, was appointed by President Joe Biden. She previously supervised the criminal file of January 6, 2021 against President Donald Trump.
An ardent footnote of Chutkan highlighted apparent contradictions between these statements and the executive orders of Trump creating Doge, which linked Dog to the decisions of the agency staff.
“The defense lawyer remembers their duty to make truthful representations at the Court,” she wrote.
Other prosecution accuses the administration of violating the law of privacy and other protections to authorize the affiliates of the Ministry of Government Efficiency led by Musk to take control of highly restricted Government IT systems.
But the trial of attorneys general focuses on the constitutionality of the role of musk in the government. At the start of their case, they sought to reduce their efforts to reduce federal agencies, which they say, served as critical functions for their residents.
The States declared to the judge that the temporary ban order was necessary to maintain the “status quo which existed before the creation of Doge with Mr. Musk at the bar – a federal government which normally operated by individual officers in their respective agencies ”.
“Without Tro, the complainants will undergo irreparable damage to permanent threats to disclose very sensitive information and the continuous demolition of critical parties of the federal agencies on which the complainants depend,” wrote the general prosecutors in legal documents.
Katelyn Polantz of CNN contributed to this report.
This story breaks and will be updated.