A federal court has sided with the Trump administration, resolving a disagreement with New York Attorney General Letitia James over the broad scope of cost-cutting efforts to scrutinize US Treasury payments that they believe are bloated with excessive spending.
James was one of 18 Democratic attorneys general who sued to stop the US Department of Government Efficiency’s inquiry of the Treasury payment system. The clique suffered a significant blow on Tuesday when U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York eased the final legal obstacle for the four DOGE workers entrusted with conducting the inquiry.
A previous injunction was also lifted when the Trump administration demonstrated that it had properly instructed the four employees to protect sensitive taxpayer information during the investigation. Vargas allowed access to one DOGE employee in April after they had finished a similar training session.
Before those judgments, the judge, a Biden appointee, mainly agreed with state prosecutors who contended that the Treasury’s access-granting mechanisms were insufficiently developed, potentially violating the law.
The current verdict also relieves DOGE of the need to seek a court order every time the austerity agency adds additional staff members to the Treasury inquiry.
“[T]here is little utility in having this Court function as Treasury’s de facto human resources officer each time a new team member is onboarded,” Vargas wrote in her order, Politico reported.
“The parties are in agreement that … the New DOGE Employees should be permitted to have access to (Bureau of the Fiscal Service) payment systems,” she explained.
Treasury DOGE team leader Tom Krause and DOGE members Linda Whitridge, Samuel Corcos, and Todd Newman collaborated to submit dozens of pages of paperwork outlining the rigorous training processes that workers would have to go through before accessing Treasury data.
James, who is presently under criminal investigation, has referred to the DOGE inquiry as the Trump administration’s “illegal power grab” and justified the lawsuit as vital to maintain the integrity of Social Security, Medicaid, and other government safety net programs.
DOGE members had previously attempted to get access to the Treasury site, known as the Bureau of the Fiscal Service or BFS, to stop payments to USAID and other organizations that continued to operate despite efforts to shut them down. The decision sparked a flurry of legal activity about whether the executive branch has the authority to discontinue transfers to agencies designated by Congress.
Each year, the BFS oversees over $5 trillion in federal spending, impacting everything from remote bureaucratic departments to the operations of larger health and defense departments. Elon Musk, the creator of DOGE, sought to remove the traditional constraint of presidential appointments.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is begging for cash as she finds herself in legal hot water over allegations of mortgage fraud.
The attorney sent out invitations to a fundraiser for her 2026 reelection campaign, where ticket prices range from $500 to a shocking $18,000, the maximum donation allowed by state law, The New York Post reported.
The invitation for the event on Tuesday from 5:30 PM to 7 PM features James surrounded by a gay pride flag.
“Letitia James is fighting for our rights every single day. This is our opportunity to show Letitia that we have her back,” a page for the event on the ActBlue website said.
Many conservatives welcomed the news that James could soon face legal scrutiny herself, after the Trump administration referred her for possible federal prosecution over alleged mortgage fraud.
Critics were quick to highlight James’ own widely quoted remark that “no one is above the law,” following this week’s revelation that she had been criminally referred for allegedly misrepresenting financial information to obtain favorable property loans.
James originally invoked the phrase during her high-profile civil fraud case against the Trump Organization, which resulted in a $454 million judgment over inflated property valuations.
Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators were quick to boast that “karma” was coming for the AG, gloating that “the tables have now turned.”
