Most Trump administration officials are prohibited from accessing sensitive Treasury records for at least a week, the judge ruled.
A federal judge has temporarily barred the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk, from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans kept at the Treasury Department.
The late-night order, issued Saturday by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan, blocks most Trump administration officials—including Musk and members of his cost-cutting initiative—from accessing sensitive Treasury records for at least a week while the case proceeds in the New York court.
The injunction specifically prohibits President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from granting access to records containing personally identifiable or confidential financial information to political appointees, special government employees, or any other employees from outside of the department. The White House has designated Musk a special government employee.
Under the order, only those working at the Bureau of Fiscal Services and have passed background checks may access those records in order to do their job.
The judge further ordered any person among those whom he restricted to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any.”
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Feb. 14.
The decision was made after 19 state attorneys general sued the Trump and Bessent after DOGE was given access to the Treasury records. DOGE is an advisory body tasked to identify ways to reduce government spending.
The attorneys general argued that Musk and DOGE, which is not an official government department, should not have access to such highly sensitive financial data. They claimed that the move violates federal law and presents a massive cybersecurity and privacy risk.
“Defendants’ new expanded access policy poses huge cybersecurity risks” that put “vast amounts of funding for the States and their residents in peril and endangers the [personally identifiable information] of States’ residents whose information is stored on the payment systems,” reads the complaint, which was filed late Feb. 7 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Engelmayer agreed with the state’s argument that they “will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief.”
