Minnesota was one of the states that sued over DOGE’s access to Treasury, accessing Treasury information, and doing who knows what with it. It started with a request for an Emergency Temporary Restraining Order that was filed Friday, February 7, 2025. For a succinct statement of the facts in support of this TRO request, see pages 41-46:
And on Saturday, wasting no time, the Court Ordered that DOGE come to a screeching halt — that is if they obey the Order (and if not, bring on the sanctions, bring on contempt of court:
It’s a delightfully simple and straightforward Order, essentially:
[T]he defendants are (i) restrained from granting access to any Treasury Department payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees, other than to civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties within the Bureau of Fiscal Services who have passed all background checks and security clearances and taken all information security training called for in federal statutes and Treasury Department regulations; (ii) restrained from granting access to all political appointees, special government employees, and government employees detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department, to any Treasury Department payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees; and (iii) ordered to direct any person prohibited above from having access to such information, records and systems but who has had access to such information, records, and systems since January 20, 2025, to immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any…
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