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DOGE is done. What happened to its records?
DOGE is done. What happened to its records?
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Opinion
DOGE is done. What happened to its records?
With the White House trying to ensure that no DOGE records see the light of day, the public may never know how much DOGE cut or what, if anything, it saved.
The Department of Government Efficiency, which carried out the most transformative restructuring of the federal government in a generation, has formally ended — with no public accounting of its actions. Despite touting itself as the most transparent administration in history, the Trump White House is working to ensure that no DOGE records ever see the light of day.
most transparent administration in history
This is a dangerous antidemocratic precedent, especially since DOGE took direction from Elon Musk, who was famously not a regular government employee. By handing over essential government functions to members of the ultrawealthy who happen to be friends with the president, while systematically dismantling America’s transparency infrastructure, the administration is effectively hiding that public policy is being dictated at an oligarch’s request. The threat is the privatization of government power, with no chance of oversight or public input.
[Former Sen. Boxer slams impact of Musk’s DOGE: ‘So authoritarian and un-American’]()
If the DOGE model succeeds, there’s no telling how many shadow agencies may follow — and how many government decisions taxpayers could be locked out of.
To date, what little the public knows about DOGE has mostly come from whistleblowers. The mechanics behind this information blackout are twofold.
Almost from its inception, the Trump administration argued that DOGE was not an agency with independent authority and therefore was not subject to the real-time scrutiny of Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) requests. Rather, the administration said that DOGE’s sole legal function was to advise and assist the president, and that political appointees at federal agencies — not DOGE personnel — held the ultimate authority to implement its recommended mass firings and agency liquidations.
sole legal function was to advise and assist the president
If the DOGE model succeeds, there’s no telling how many shadow agencies may follow — and how many government decisions taxpayers could be locked out of.
Taken at face value, this would mean that DOGE’s records fall under the Presidential Records Act. This is a critical distinction from federal agency records: Presidential records don’t become subject to FOIA until five years after an administration leaves office. This multiyear delay makes it functionally impossible for the public to verify that these files are being preserved.
The dangers are already playing out. A Wired investigation published Thursday found that last year the National Labor Relations Board, which investigates reports of unfair labor practices and holds sensitive whistleblower files, deleted DOGE team accounts before investigators could audit them. This deletion followed a high-profile whistleblower complaint alleging that the DOGE team at the labor board had been granted unrestricted access to alter and copy sensitive data.
investigates reports of unfair labor practices
Erasing DOGE’s digital footprints appears to have compromised a federal investigation and violated the Federal Records Act, which compels agencies to keep records for the length of their retention schedule. It also means that our current primary mechanism for DOGE transparency — submitting FOIA requests to federal agencies — has already been sabotaged.
[Bombshell Reports: Trump Administration DOGE cuts fallout, AI bubble warning]()
Dual lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and American Oversight are among those actively challenging the administration’s stance that DOGE isn’t subject to FOIA. The groups argue that because DOGE wielded substantial independent government power, including implementing policy and personnel changes, it cannot hide behind an advisory label. While these cases are still winding through the courts, judges have ruled that DOGE must preserve its records in the interim.
still winding through the courts
The outcome of these cases is all the more consequential in light of the Trump administration’s recent adoption of a radical Office of Legal Counsel opinion declaring that the Presidential Records Act itself is unconstitutional. The memo — which the White House requested — argues that presidential papers are no longer public property but the president’s personal property to do with as he wishes. This effectively gives the president a green light to destroy or delete official files at will.
Office of Legal Counsel opinion
[White House embracing DOJ memo that loosens rules for preserving presidential records]()
The legal reasoning behind this memo is as dangerous as it is absurd. No president, not even Donald Trump during his first term, has argued that the Presidential Records Act was unconstitutional. Treating government records as personal trophies (to be hoarded, incinerated or anything else) is a clear affront to democratic accountability.
My organization, Freedom of the Press Foundation, joined with CREW in a lawsuit to force the administration to comply with the presidential recordkeeping law. In late May, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the White House to comply with the Presidential Records Act as the case proceeds.
comply with the Presidential Records Act
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The White House has signaled that it intends to appeal, leaving the future of public access to presidential records — potentially including DOGE’s — in limbo.
During a recent House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought underscored the administration’s intent to let the DOGE paper trail go dark. Testifying that the White House has no plans to issue a final after-action report detailing DOGE’s total costs or workforce cuts, Vought said the fruits of the initiative’s labor are “sprinkled all across the government.” But as the labor board’s deletion proves, those “sprinklings” are being erased.
underscored the administration’s intent
The hypocrisy is staggering for a project that marketed itself as an audit that would improve government accountability. The public is left with no clear explanation of what exactly DOGE accomplished or how much it saved, if anything.
an audit that would improve government accountability
[‘Worst case scenario’: Whistleblower on how DOGE put social security data at risk]()
Worse, DOGE’s disappearing records are part of a coordinated assault on government accountability.
Over the past year, the administration has degraded the ability of agencies across the federal government to comply with FOIA, proposed a governmentwide nondisclosure agreement designed to muzzle whistleblowers, fired more than 20 independent inspectors general and removed a massive amount of public information from agency websites.
Taken together, these actions blind Americans to the actions of their federal government.
If the Trump administration can outsource core government power to a trillionaire like Musk, and dismantle transparency laws to prevent the public from understanding what his shadow agency really did, then our democratic experiment is effectively plunged into darkness.
The DOGE playbook cannot become the blueprint for governance. The first step to averting this oligarchical capture is securing and opening DOGE’s books. This is the only way to ensure that Congress, journalists and future generations can audit the most disruptive administrative overhaul in modern history — and guarantee that future government change is a response to public will, not private interests.
Lauren Harper
Lauren Harper is the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. She previously worked for the National Security Archive, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.