January 21, 2025
Is DOGE in trouble?
Lots has happened with the Department of Government Efficiency in just the last 24 hours. A new presidential executive order, one of the co-leaders departing and a flood of lawsuits filed against the new agency before it can really even get off the ground.
As you know –yesterday — day one — president Trump signed an tsunami of executive orders. One of them was this one titled establishing and implementing the president’s department of government efficiency or doge. This is the agency he, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been touting on the campaign trail saying it’s going to cut waste, fraud and abuse in the federal budget to the tune of trillions of dollars.
What’s interesting is Trump’s executive order — instead of starting from scratch and creating an advisory committee which most expected doge to be – the order takes an existing government agency called the United States Digital Service which is currently used to update government websites and fix IT issues – and transform it into the United States DOGE service. It will be structured within the executive office of the president and will be a “temporary organization” working over the next 18 months to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity” and to cut costs. That organization will have an administrator that will then report to the chief of staff.
The order does not give any specifics about the goals, about how the agency is about to cut federal spending, or slash regulations. But what it does say specifically is that each actual government department will create a DOGE team within that department to implement the president’s DOGE agenda. It also specifically says that the administrator of doge *shall modernize the software, network infrastructure, IT systems and make sure that department agency networks can basically talk to each other.
Now – I as reported in this deep dive video – just because the word department is in the title doesn’t mean DOGE is a department like the department of defense or the treasury department. To create one of those – you would need congress to pass a law…which obviously has not happened here. So to get around that – in his executive order trump just took an existing agency, repurposed it and renamed it. Can he do that?
We’re about to find out. Moments after Trump was sworn in multiple lawsuits were filed against this department of government efficiency. They’re suing over the structure of the agency and the transparency of it especially during these last two months prior to trump coming into office. The other issue – will Elon Musk – who president Trump selected to run this agency become a government employee now that the office is housed within the executive office of the president? If yes that opens up a whole can of worms with ethics law compliance and conflicts of interest disclosures which could bring into question Musk’s billions of dollars in government contracts. And if Musk is not a government employee then how can he run a federal agency within the executive office of the president. See – both ways there are issues.
The other issue is Vivek Ramaswamy the man trump selected to co-lead this department of government efficiency said yesterday – he’s out because he is reportedly going to run for governor of Ohio.
Meanwhile, because it’s an executive order by the president – work is underway today to transform the United States digital service into the United States doge service. Those efforts will continue until the courts step in – if they decide these plaintiffs have a case.
Read Trump’s DOGE executive order here.
Read one lawsuit already filed here.
Read another lawsuit already filed here.
