The Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, is likely subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal judge ruled Monday, noting that the newly formed department had been run in ‘unusual secrecy.’

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, sided with the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in rejecting the Trump administration’s argument that DOGE does not have to respond to public records requests.

The administration claimed that DOGE is an arm of the Executive Office of the President, making it not subject to FOIA requests, which allow the public to request access to records produced by government agencies that had not previously been disclosed.

Cooper ruled that DOGE exercises ‘substantial independent authority’ much greater than the other parts of the executive office that are usually exempt from the FOIA law.

The ruling could force DOGE to become more transparent about its role in the administration’s mass firings of the federal workforce, as well as its dismantling of government agencies and decisions to cancel contracts.

‘Canceling any government contract would seem to require substantial authority—and canceling them on this scale certainly does,’ Cooper wrote.

The judge said DOGE ‘appears to have the power not just to evaluate federal programs, but to drastically reshape and even eliminate them wholesale,’ which he said the department declined to refute.

Cooper also said its ‘operations thus far have been marked by unusual secrecy,’ citing reports about DOGE’s use of an outside server, its employees’ refusal to identify themselves to career officials and their use of the encrypted app Signal to communicate.

The watchdog filed the lawsuit on Feb. 20 after filing FOIA requests seeking further information on DOGE’s operations, including communications like internal government emails and memos.

The group had asked Cooper to order DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget to release the records by Monday, arguing that the public and Congress needed the information during the debate over government funding legislation that must be passed by Friday to avert a partial government shutdown, but the judge declined to set a Friday deadline to produce the records.

‘Unfortunately for CREW, it satisfies none of the factors entitling it to preliminary relief ordering production of its OMB requests by today’s date,’ Cooper wrote.

Instead, the judge ordered for the records to be produced on a ‘rolling basis as soon as practicable,’ saying voters and Congress deserve timely information on DOGE given the ‘unprecedented’ authority it was exercising to reshape the government.

This case is one of several lawsuits targeting the administration’s argument that DOGE is not subject to FOIA requests, but the other cases are still in earlier stages.

Reuters contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would purchase a Tesla car to support his senior advisor Elon Musk amid nationwide protests against the electric automaker.

Trump said ‘Radical Left Lunatics’ are attempting to boycott Tesla, which he called Musk’s ‘baby.’

‘To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after midnight on Tuesday. ‘But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.’

‘They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out?’ Trump continued.

The president explained that he was going to purchase a car from Tesla to show his support for Musk.

‘In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American,’ Trump wrote. ‘Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???’

‘Thank you, President @realDonaldTrump!’ Musk responded on X.

Tesla car owners, dealerships and charging stations have been targeted nationwide by protesters and vandals over Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Protesters rallied outside Tesla dealerships on Saturday, holding signs denouncing Musk and DOGE, and cars and windows at an Oregon Tesla dealership were damaged by gunshots fired by protesters last week.

A man was also arrested after Molotov cocktails were thrown at a Tesla dealership in Salem, Oregon.

Additionally, several Tesla charging stations have been set on fire in Massachusetts, and the U.S. attorney’s office in Colorado charged a suspect after police say they found a number of explosives and concerning messages at a Tesla dealership.

Fox News’ Stepheny Price contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump has been back in the Oval Office for 50 days, which has included a whirlwind of executive orders, a breakneck pace of gutting and rebuilding agencies within the federal government, and rolling out economic plans the president says will be a boon to U.S. workers and industry. 

‘To my fellow citizens, America is back,’ Trump declared in a joint speech before Congress March 4. 

‘Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the golden Age of America,’ he continued. ‘From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years. And we are just getting started.’ 

Trump has signed at least 89 executive orders in his 50 days in office. Trump signed more executive orders in his first 50 days than any other president signed in their first year going back to the Carter administration in 1977, data compiled by Fox News show. 

Trump’s executive orders have been expansive, addressing issues ranging from ending the practice of biological males playing on girls sports teams, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, to establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Amid his executive order and action blitz, Trump and his administration have been hit with at least 102 lawsuits, including repeated lawsuits surrounding DOGE and its chair, Elon Musk. 

Musk and his DOGE team have been poring through various federal agencies in the search of government overspending, mismanagement and fraud, as well as slimming down the agencies overall through thousands of federal layoffs, including probationary employees who have not secured full-time employment. DOGE’s work has struck the ire of Democrats and federal employees who have staged repeated protests over the audits and firings in Washington, D.C., and across the U.S.

The president has meanwhile touted DOGE’s findings in public remarks, including rattling off a series of examples during his speech before a joint session of Congress. 

‘Forty-five million dollars for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma,’ Trump said as he provided examples of federal waste March 4 after thanking Musk for his work. ‘Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is. Eight million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of. Sixty million dollars for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America. Sixty million. Eight million for making mice transgender.’

Trump’s speech marked his first before both chambers of Congress since his return to the Oval Office. Trump spoke for about an hour and 40 minutes, notching the longest address a president has delivered before a joint session of Congress, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The longest speech on record previously was held by former President Bill Clinton, when he spoke for one hour and 28 minutes during his State of the Union Address in 2000. 

Immigration was a large focus of his address, as well as his first 50 days in office. His administration is touting in March that illegal border crossings have fallen to the lowest levels on record, cratering by 94% since February 2024 under the Biden administration, while massive deportation efforts between multiple law enforcement agencies have removed violent criminal illegal immigrants from the nation. 

Trump has also honored the American lives lost to illegal immigrant murders, including remembering Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray during his speech on Capitol Hill. 

Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law upon taking office in January, which directs Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain illegal immigrants arrested or charged with theft-related crimes, or those accused of assaulting a police officer. He also named a National Wildlife Refuge after Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl from Texas who was sexually assaulted and murdered by two illegal immigrants in June 2024. 

Trump’s economic policies have also been rolled out at a fast and furious pace, including 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, a 10% tariff on imports from China to help end the flow of deadly fentanyl into the U.S., as well as announcing a plan for reciprocal tariffs on foreign nations, which are set to take effect in April. 

Trump has championed that reciprocal tariffs will open the doors to foreign industries setting up shop in America to avoid the tax on imports to the U.S.

‘They can build a factory here, a plant or whatever it may be, here,’ Trump said of the reciprocal tariffs in February. ‘And that includes the medical, that includes cars, that includes chips and semiconductors. That includes everything. If you build here, you have no tariffs whatsoever. And I think that’s what’s going to happen. I think our country is going to be flooded with jobs.’

A handful of businesses and manufacturers, both U.S.-based and those abroad, have announced billions of dollars in investments since Trump took office, including Apple announcing a $500 billion investment in February that will generate 20,000 jobs in the United States and Saudi Arabia, pledging $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. 

Businesses also have pledged to increase U.S.-based production efforts since Trump took office, including auto company Stellantis announcing it will make its latest version of the Dodge Durango in Michigan, and will also reopen an assembly plant in Illinois — while Mercedes-Benz pledged to grow its U.S.-based vehicle production. 

On the international stage, Trump has secured the release of a handful of American hostages held abroad, including six who were held in Venezuela, two who were held in Afghanistan, one in Russia, one in Belarus and another American who was held in Hamas’ captivity. 

The administration also secured the arrest of the terrorist behind the 2021 Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan, which killed 13 U.S. service members amid the U.S.’ disastrous withdrawal from the country under the Biden admin. 

Trump has met with world leaders at the White House since his return to the Oval Office, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UK PM Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jordanian King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Trump met with Zelenskyy in a fiery meeting Feb. 28 as the two leaders looked to continue negotiations to end the Russia–Ukraine war, and also ink a deal to recoup the cost of U.S. aid sent to the war-torn country by gaining access to rare-earth minerals like titanium, iron and uranium in Ukraine. 

The deal was put on ice after Zelenskyy traded barbs with Vice President JD Vance and Trump during the meeting, culminating in Zelenskyy leaving the White House ahead of schedule as a planned press conference was canceled. U.S. leaders, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, recently arrived in Saudi Arabia to speak with the Ukraine delegation to discuss possible peace agreements. 

War had also raged between Israel and Hamas ahead of Trump taking office, with his transition team earning credit for helping secure a ceasefire in the waning days of the Biden administration. Trump announced in February, when Netanyahu visited the White House, that he is looking into ‘long-term ownership position’ over the Gaza Strip in order to level it, rebuild it and ‘create an economic development’ that would prevent terrorists from gaining power in the area. 

Just ’50 days in office and he has already established himself as the most consequential President of our time,’ the White House said in a statement Monday celebrating Trump’s 50 days of accomplishments. ‘The winning never stops — and President Trump is just getting started.’ 

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., is pushing to censure Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., over a TV interview in which the Republican congresswoman criticized Rep. Al Green, D-Texas. 

Green notably heckled President Donald Trump multiple times during his first address of his second term to Congress last week until House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., ordered the Sergeant at Arms to escort Green from the chamber. 

Houlahan submitted a resolution Monday calling to censure Boebert ‘for her recent disparaging and derogatory comments’ about Green. 

During a March 7 interview with Real America’s Voice News, Boebert said ‘Al Green was given multiple opportunities to stand down, to sit down, to behave, to show decorum.’ 

‘For him to go and shake his pimp cane at President Trump was absolutely abhorrent,’ Boebert added. 

The resolution said those words uttered by Boebert ‘are disparaging, derogatory, and racist toward another colleague, and are a breach of proper conduct and decorum of the U.S. House of Representatives.’ 

It calls for Boebert to be censured, ‘forthwith present herself in the well of the House of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure,’ and that Boebert ‘be censured with the public reading of this resolution by the Speaker.’ 

In a statement, Houlahan said, ‘After my discussion on the House floor last week when Speaker Johnson told me he’d have to censure half the members if he actually enforced the rules of the Congress, I decided to help, and tonight introduced a resolution to censure Representative Boebert for her racist and derogatory statements about Representative Al Green (D-TX).’ 

At the start of Trump’s address before Congress, Green stood up when the president described his electoral victory as a ‘mandate’ from the American people.  

‘You have no mandate! You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!’ Green shouted, waving his cane at Trump. 

The lower chamber of Congress voted to censure Green the next day, and Johnson condemned how the Democrat ‘chose to deliberately violate House rules in a manner that we think is probably unprecedented in history.’

Houlahan initially voted to table the motion, but she was among the 10 Democrats who ultimately joined with Republicans to censure Green. 

Establishment Democrats and progressives promptly turned on each other over their party’s disrupting behavior during Trump’s address, complaining how they’ve failed to have a unifying message against Republicans.  

Houlahan acknowledged in an X post on Thursday that ‘today’s vote to censure my fellow representative was not easy and has angered many of you.’ 

Speaking to the Philadelphia Inquirer afterward, she defended her decision but also criticized past behavior from Republicans in the chamber that she argued also warranted censure. 

‘I voted to table that because I think we have much, much better things to do with our time than to continue to do this tit-for-tat nonsense with one another,’ Houlahan told the newspaper. ‘That being said, the motion to table failed, so we don’t have the opportunity to not vote on this. And I believe we need to recognize that we have rules in the House of Representatives and we have standards of decorum that we all presumably agree to, and we all need to agree to those standards so we can get the work for the people done and so we can not be a banana republic.’

After the vote, Houlahan told the Inquirer she pulled Johnson ‘to the side and had a very‚ very strong conversation with him where I explained I voted in favor but I am not OK with arbitrary and capricious applications of the same rule.’ 

She said she complained about how there was no censure or sanction against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Johnson replied, ‘Well, she just wore a hat.’

But Houlahan argued Greene ‘also yelled at the President of the United States,’ referring to her treatment of former President Joe Biden last year, ‘and I don’t believe it’s OK that she did not have same treatment.’ 

‘And I think it’s absolute hypocrisy that people after the vote were standing there yelling at Mr. Green when their own colleagues have done very, very similar things, not wearing masks when it was mandated, wearing MAGA hats when there are literally no hats allowed on the floor,’ Houlahan said. ‘We had to make a special exception for wearing hijabs. It’s insane… We need to behave like grown-ups and stop the madness.’

Houlahan said it was a ‘really, really, really hard vote for me,’ but ultimately she did her duty. ‘And it’s frustrating because Al Green’s statement was true,’ Houlahan said. ‘It wasn’t provocative or offensive. It was the truth. But I think each one of us had to make decisions about how we were going to comport ourselves and what was appropriate, and I know each colleague on both sides made those choices, and each one of us knows there are consequences to those choices.’