Federal judge approves DOGE's access to Treasury's payment systems

A federal judge has approved access to the federal government’s sensitive data systems for the Treasury Department’s entire DOGE team.

The ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, for the Southern District of New York, ruled Tuesday, lifting the last legal restriction that prevented four Treasury-assigned Department of Government Efficiency employees from accessing the agency’s payments infrastructure, Politico reported. She relaxed an earlier order after the Trump administration showed it had set up a process to appropriately vet and train the employees.

The ruling is on a case that New York Attorney General Letitia James and 18 other Democratic attorneys general had brought in an effort to block DOGE’s access to the Treasury systems.

In April, Vargas allowed a DOGE worker to access the sensitive payment and data systems after completing the same training for Treasury employees and submitting a financial disclosure report.

Prior to that ruling, Vargas in February largely sided with the states and prohibited DOGE employees from accessing the system, deciding that the Treasury’s process for granting access to the sensitive data was too rushed and haphazard, likely violating the law.

In her Tuesday ruling, Vargas required the Treasury to follow its protocols for vetting and training DOGE staffers. However, she said that she will not require the agency to ask permission each time it seeks to add new members to the DOGE team.

“[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.