Judge Says States Have ‘Strong’ Case Against Musk, but Rejects Restraining Order
Last week, 14 state attorneys general filed an audacious lawsuit seeking to have Elon Musk’s activities with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency declared unconstitutional and reverse them as null and void, because, they assert, the billionaire should have been confirmed by the Senate, and because DOGE is acting far beyond any congressional mandate.
On Tuesday, federal District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan made her first ruling in the case — one that should be viewed as a split decision. It rejects the states’ request for a temporary restraining order, but underscores both the seriousness and “strong merits argument” behind their constitutional claims.
In a blow to the states, Chutkan refused to freeze Musk and DOGE’s activities, ruling that the states hadn’t cleared the bar to prove that they were experiencing “imminent, irreparable harm.” (She noted that other courts were moving swiftly to tailor more narrow restraining orders in cases that have “identified specific individuals or programs imminently targeted” by the administration.)
But in her first written comments on the merits of the case, Chutkan delivered what reads like a shot across the bow of the Trump administration. She wrote that the states had raised a “colorable” (that is to say plausible) claim under the constitution’s Appointments Clause, with “serious implications.”
Chutkan writes: “Musk has not been nominated by the president nor confirmed by the U.S. Senate, as constitutionally required for officers who exercise ‘significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States.’” Yet even as Musk has moved to “bypass” this safeguard, Chutkan writes, he has “rapidly taken steps to fundamentally reshape the executive branch.”
The judge notes that even Donald Trump’s Department of Justice concedes “there is no apparent ‘source of legal authority granting [DOGE] the power’ to take some of the actions” that the states call into question. And Chutkan adds that if the states are factually correct in their claims, Musk and DOGE’s actions are “precisely the ‘executive abuses’ that the Appointments Clause seeks to prevent.”
In the end, Chutkan writes, it is precisely because the stakes are so high that she is acting with caution now. The judge records that the states “legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight.” (As a part of this litigation, the Trump administration has filed a court brief claiming that, contrary to the president’s own words, Musk is not charge of DOGE, and is merely a White House adviser with no “actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself.”)
But in a case about overreach of executive power, the Chutkan continues, she’s determined to not commit a sin of judicial overreach by granting a restraining order, insisting: “it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority.”
Read the full opinion here.
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