More Trump wins in court. Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a very encouraging story headlined, “Federal appeals court clears DOGE to access sensitive records at agencies.”
The Fourth Circuit just handed Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency a major win, clearing its access to ‘sensitive’ agency databases, despite howls of protest from unions and benefit recipients. In a 2–1 ruling, Judges Julius Richardson and Steven Agee held that the plaintiffs “struggled to show harm,” and reminded everyone that privacy laws don’t bar access for federal workers whose jobs require it — like, say, the folks modernizing those systems.
In other words, if DOGE’s job is to clean up an agency’s IT, it gets admin-level access to everything inside. Period.
Launching out of the gate, Trump created DOGE by executive order in January, granting it “full and prompt access” to all unclassified agency records and systems. The initiative (once overseen by Elon Musk) has been one of the most polarizing parts of Trump’s second term— hailed by his allies as a swamp-draining efficiency engine, blasted by his opponents as a scary, unaccountable digital skeleton key.
A Maryland judge had blocked DOGE from accessing certain ‘private’ data at Treasury, OPM, and Education, but the appeals court shredded that injunction, citing a June Supreme Court decision allowing DOGE into Social Security’s files.
Dissenting Judge Robert King said the lower court “acted quickly — but extremely carefully” in keeping DOGE out, but would have kept the firewall. But for now, the firewall’s gone — and DOGE’s data bulldozers are rolling in.
The last major impediment to the DOGE project has fallen. From what we know of DOGE’s anti-bureaucratic speed, they’re probably already working. This is an unpopular take, but I suspect DOGE’s real job is less about cutting the bloat and more about corralling and cross-checking the sprawling federal database. Let’s see what they do with it.
