CNN: Is DOGE actually an agency? The answer could have major ramifications

[Dennis Donovan]

CNN - Is DOGE actually an agency? The answer could have major ramifications

By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Published 8:00 AM EDT, Sun March 30, 2025


Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has blitzed its way through federal agencies over the last two months, spawning dozens of lawsuits in its effort to shrink the federal government.

As judges take a closer look at how DOGE is operating, and what authority it exercises across the federal bureaucracy, among the many questions they’re asking is whether DOGE is actually a government agency itself.

The answer to that question, pedantic as it may sound, could have major ramifications, including whether DOGE is subject to public records laws and other statutes that require some oversight of executive branch activity.

The laws could pose a check on what Musk can do with his government-slashing project — both by granting access to what’s happening behind the scenes, and by giving legal challengers tools to potentially reverse some of his most drastic actions.

/snip

I can answer this. DOGE is a made-up, psudo-agency and its very existence is illegal as hell.

[Kid Berwyn]

1. NOW they ask.

Either way, it’s function is “Discovering Opportunities for Grifter Exploitation.”

[no_hypocrisy]

2. If not an agency, then Musk and his "Merrymen" are not protected by

even quasi-immunity.

File those class action lawsuits now.

[Magoo48]

3. It isn't the name that's doing the damage.

Sabotage by any other name…

[underpants]

4. It takes the organizational space of the US Digital Service

That was created by Obama to make Federal websites easier to navigate. Specifically the ACA website which was a mess at the beginning. It’s part of OMB so it’s in the Executive Branch.

In January 2025, according to Executive Order 14158, it was publicly renamed and reorganized as the United States DOGE Service,[1] which includes the self-styled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, the USDS still exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service


CNN is requiring a log in now?

[Eugene]

6. Reports say that CNN paywalled some of its articles since last October.

I haven't encountered it myself though, and I don't know any details beyond the reported $3.99/month price.

[underpants]

7. It's the first I'd seen it.

[Eugene]

5. The official definition varies. DOGE is either a temporary agency under U.S. Digital Services or

it is an effective rebranding of U.S. Digital Services. Either way, USDC is an agency of the Executive Office of the President, and the White House cannot legally outsource policy to unaccountable people.

Also, "special government employees" like Musk are legally limited to 120 days of employment. Musk's latest plans for DOGE exceed that limit by at least a month.

[Igel]

9. The rebuttals would be trivial.

DOGE is not a temporary agency. It wasn't set up as one. The type of employee category that the notorious outsiders occupy makes them temporary employees with a maximum stay in their position--dunno if there's a requirement that they not be rehired for some amount of time. But I've read nothing decreeing DOGE temporary.

DOGE is not unaccountable; it's accountable to an elected official, Trump, all more so because it's administratively/hierarchically housed in the Office of the President--not some other cabinet-level-headed agency, not some "independent agency" which sets policy but apparently is to some extent unaccountable without a long-ish process for removing the level of authority/accountability pass-through called the agency "head" or "chair" or whatever the office's title is. (Whether the chief executive exercises that role is a different matter. But this is true regardless of the administration at issue--Obama and the US Dig. Services, Biden and US DS, or Trump and US DS/DOGE.)

Musk is not DOGE; DOGE will continue beyond the legislated (or regulatory-agency imposed) limit to Musk's sojourn.

Then there's the question I haven't seen posed: If Trump thinks that having the executive power invested in him, will he accept limits on how he runs his own office. Note that I'm pleading ignorance here, I don't know if that "special temporary employee" limit was imposed by some regulatory agency under the authority of the President, whether Congress with Presidential agreement placed this limit on the Office of the President--and, if so, whether it was one of these "you're going to shut down the entire government" or "you're going to do this horrible, horrible thing" over something so piddling as the # of days a seldom-used "special temporary employee" can work in the OP?

[AnnaLee]

8. I'm not sure this would be more than a set back

I'm more asking a question than saying the following is indeed allowed.

Couldn't Trump just have any department head (such as Defense, Treasury, etc.) fire some high personnel in a small agency and replace them with DOGE employees as governement employees. Then the agency could be renamed (name changes happen all the time). Also, I don't think Presidential staff appointments are all subject to Congressional approval. If not, another way to get them actually on the payroll. If these are possible, I would hope they would be subject to security clearance proceedures (but I doubt the current crowd do serious clearance checks). Do they even need to be organized into an agency to do the same damage?