Judge Orders Trump Officials, Including a DOGE Member, to Testify Over Musk Team’s Activities

A federal judge in Washington ruled on Thursday that Trump administration officials connected to Elon Musk’s expansive effort to reshape the federal government, including a member of his team, must testify in one of the court fights over those activities.

The ruling, by Judge John D. Bates, appears to be the first to require a member of Mr. Musk’s task force, the Department of Government Efficiency, to testify in one of the many court cases triggered by its actions.

DOGE, as the task force is known, was empowered by President Trump to slash government agencies and scrutinize their spending. Under the direction of Mr. Musk, the group’s members have gained access to a number of agency computer systems and databases, many of which contain vast troves of federal employees’ and taxpayers’ personal information and other sensitive records.

Unions and nonprofit groups have fought back in federal court against Mr. Musk’s team, arguing that its entry into government databases violated federal law. In the case in which Judge Bates ruled on Thursday, unions representing federal workers, including the American Federation of Government Employees, are seeking to bar DOGE from records systems containing Americans’ personal information at the Departments of Labor and Health and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In a ruling in the case earlier this month, Judge Bates, who was appointed to Federal District Court in Washington by President George W. Bush, did not immediately move to block Mr. Musk’s team from accessing those records. However, he voiced grave concerns about the privacy issues raised by the case.

In his order on Thursday, Judge Bates said that requests for documents and depositions of DOGE officials was “necessary to determine the contours of the agency actions that plaintiffs challenge” and “will not overly burden defendants.”

The plaintiffs had requested depositions with one official each from the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as from one member of the DOGE team. Judge Bates’s ruling granted the request, limiting the depositions’ lengths to a total of eight hours.

Judge Bates noted in his order that the plaintiffs’ request for documents “largely seeks only individuals’ identities, dates, and names of systems, as well as documents that defendants’ own declarations have referenced.”

“It would be strange to permit defendants to submit evidence that addresses critical factual issues and proceed to rule,” Judge Bates wrote, without “permitting plaintiffs to explore those factual issues through very limited discovery.”