A federal judge in Washington Monday morning appeared inclined to deny an urgent request to temporarily block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from firing employees or accessing sensitive records from a half-dozen federal departments.
After a nearly hourlong virtual hearing, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said she planned to issue a ruling within 24 hours on a request by 14 state attorneys general to issue a temporary restraining order that would block DOGE from firing employees or accessing data from the departments of Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation, Commerce, and the Office of Personnel Management.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan attends a farewell ceremony for Attorney General Merrick Garland at the Department of Justice, Jan. 16, 2025, in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Describing the states’ request as “prophylactic,” Chutkan expressed skepticism about issuing a wide-reaching order while the plaintiffs struggled to prove a concrete harm stemming from DOGE’s conduct.
“The court can’t act based on the media reports. We can’t do that,” Chutkan said. “The things that I’m hearing are concerning indeed and troubling indeed but I have to have a record, and I have to make a finding the facts before I issue something.”
She said that in order to issue such an urgent temporary restraining order, the states would have to prove a threat of “extreme” and “imminent harm” that “can’t be undone,” but having to “scramble to rehire” might be difficult and challenging, but it can be done.
“I’m not seeing it so far,” Chutkan said.
Read more here.
-From ABC News’ Peter Charalambous, Mike Levine and Katherine Faulders
