Lawyers for the Justice Department have agreed to temporarily restrict the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems.
The agreement comes after a coalition of labor organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Treasury Department for allegedly sharing confidential data with the DOGE. The union members claim that Federal laws protect sensitive personal and financial information from improper disclosure.
The Trump administration filed terms of a proposed order late Wednesday evening, and U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved the order on Thursday morning.
“The Defendants will not provide access to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” the order says.
However, the order says that two special government employees in the Treasury Department – Tom Krause and Marko Elez – will be allowed to continue seeing department data. Their access to the payment records will be limited to “read only.”
According to news reports, both Krause and Elez work for DOGE.
Additionally, the order grants an exception for any Treasury Department employee “who has a need for the record or system of records in the performance of their duties.”
The agreement will stay in place until Feb. 24 when both sides must return to court to argue for a long-term solution.
Represented by the Public Citizen Litigation Group and the State Democracy Defenders Fund, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the Service Employees International Union filed the complaint on Monday in the District Court for the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit came after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent allegedly granted Elon Musk’s DOGE team access to the Treasury Department’s payment system last weekend – a system that manages trillions of dollars of transactions every year.
Democratic lawmakers slammed the move, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D.-N.Y., saying, “The American people did not vote to let DOGE get a hold of people’s Social Security numbers.”
The lawmaker said he and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., “will work together on legislation to stop unlawful meddling in the Treasury Department’s payment systems.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., also voiced his concerns this week regarding DOGE’s access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, saying, “It is a prescription for nightmares.”
“The Musk hatchet brigade has infiltrated a gold mine of data that every foreign spy and every corrupt actor would love to see,” Sen. Wyden said. “We’re one mistake away from economic catastrophe.”
Additionally, the ranking members of seven House committees wrote a letter to President Donald Trump on Tuesday requesting information on the reported attempts by DOGE to access classified and sensitive information without proper clearance.
The Democrats – who include House Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., among others – warned this behavior could pose national security risks.
Musk and his associates were granted access to Treasury’s payment systems the same weekend they announced they would shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and locked career civil servants out of the Office of Personnel Management computer systems.
