AFGE Sues Trump Administration Over DOGE

AFGE is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the new Trump administration over the DOGE task force.

Just moments after President Trump was sworn in, the lawsuits from his political opposition began. The first is a suit against the new administration over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is one of three plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The other two are Public Citizen and State Democracy Defenders Fund (SDDF).

DOGE is tasked with identifying government programs and regulations that could potentially be cut in order to help reduce federal spending and bring down the country’s rapidly growing federal debt, which now stands at over $36 trillion. Recommendations it makes will then be presented to President Trump for consideration. Now that the president has been formally inaugurated, recommendations from DOGE are expected to start coming in quickly.

The lawsuit alleges that DOGE violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in part because it is not an official department within the federal government.

The lawsuit also states that the members of DOGE do not “represent the interests of everyday Americans” and that it does not have a fair balance of viewpoints and operates too much in secret because “its meetings and records are not open to public inspection in real time.”

The lawsuit says that DOGE violates FACA as follows:

While FACA permits the use of advisory committees, it imposes various guardrails to prevent them from turning into vehicles for advancing private interests in the federal decision-making process and secretly influencing federal officials’ exercise of policymaking discretion. Those guardrails include the requirements that advisory committee (sic) have a fair balance in viewpoints represented, that they do not meet in secret, and that their records and work product be made available for public inspection. FACA also prohibits advisory committees from meeting or taking any action until a charter for the advisory committee has been filed, specifying, among other things, the nature of the committee’s work and duties and the federal official to whom the committee is responsible.

It goes on to say that DOGE poses a threat to the plaintiffs and the people they represent.

“Its [DOGE] work and recommendations thus may endanger Plaintiffs and the hundreds of thousands of everyday people whom they represent,” according to the lawsuit because DOGE “will be recommending cuts to government agencies and programs that protect health, benefits, consumer finance, and product safety.”

About the Author

Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.