A federal judge on Tuesday refused to stop the new US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from firing federal employees and gaining access to public records.
The judge turned down a "threat to democracy" request from more than a dozen Democrat-led states for a temporary restraining order to stop Elon Musk's DOGE from continuing efforts to reduce federal waste.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, 62, said the request for relief by the Democrats didn't provide enough evidence that the DOGE actions are causing harm.
The judge's decision allows the DOGE team to continue it's efforts to reduce government waste and slash federal budgets.
The plaintiffs claimed that allowing Musk to perform firings and access public records amounted to an "unlawful delegation" of executive power to a private, unelected citizen.
In the lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, it's claimed that "there is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual."
Also represented as part of the lawsuit were the states of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
In order to receive the temporary restraining order, the plaintiffs would have had to prove the DOGE actions represented "imminent harm," but Obama-appointed Judge Chutkan said Tuesday those plaintiffs failed to provide such proof.
It was just the latest in a series of lawsuits filed around the United States in attempts to limit or stop the Musk team's access to government data, part of the team's commission by a Trump White House Executive Order to identify and eliminate as much public waste as possible in a year and a-half.